Benton, Franklin counties get $60 million in federal COVID relief to spend. Where’s it going?
Benton and Franklin counties plan to spend $60 million in federal COVID relief funds on building upgrades, law enforcement and to cover their own payroll.
Benton County has been awarded $39.6 million. Its largest project will be a $10 million major renovation of the 42-bed Benton Franklin Juvenile Justice Center.
Franklin County will receive $18.5 million. Close to $6.6 million of that will go toward HVAC, lighting and energy improvements at the HAPO Center in Pasco.
The projects were listed in newly released spending plans requested by the Tri-City Herald that show just how the two government agencies expect to spend millions of dollars of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding over the next four years.
The $1.9 trillion rescue plan act was signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021, just days after Congress gave it the green light.
The law became notable for sending $1,400 checks to many Americans who met a certain income thresholds and for propping up a historic vaccine campaign.
But it also sent more than $360 billion in emergency funding to state, local, territorial and Tribal governments.
Washington benefited from about $4.4 billion in ARPA relief, with $2.7 billion going to local governments.
The funds were originally meant to be used to help governments at all levels equitably address financial woes caused by the COVID pandemic and disparities they were seeing in their communities.
Governments have until 2024 to say how they’ll spend the money, and until 2026 to spend it.
Benton County
A recent change by the U.S. Treasury Department has resulted in billions of ARPA funds being used as “replacement funds.”
The idea, according to a recent story by the Seattle-based online news outlet, Crosscut, was that it would lower the spending burden on smaller governments and give them more flexibility.
Benton County has allocated the maximum amount allowed under that change — $10 million of its $39.6 million — for “revenue replacement.”
That means those funds will be part of the county’s general fund to replace money that was lost out due to the COVID pandemic.
Some say the rule change undermines government transparency and the ability to make critical, ambitious public investments. But it mostly means that agencies won’t have to detail how those funds are spent.
“It pays for wages. It pays for benefits. It pays for contracted services,” Deputy Administrator Matt Rasmussen told the Tri-City Herald. “For us to detail out where that is — it doesn’t operate that way. It’s spent like our normal county funds would be.”
Benton County experienced a $7 million shortfall in its first year of the COVID pandemic, Rasmussen said. The county employs about 640 people.
Using $10 million of the county’s nearly $40 million award over the next two years will help close the gap on essential services that continued during the pandemic and a decline in revenue.
“The county’s not making money on this. At the best, we’re breaking even. If not, we’re down a little bit. But we are allocating these funds for the other community projects that are in this list,” Rasmussen said.
Although Benton County was awarded $39.6 million, public officials have listed a plan to spend more than $41.6 million to keep funding in the community in case projects are delayed.
Setting aside the $10 million in replacement funds, the county already has spent or plans to spend $31.6 million.
Here’s where those funds are going:
- $7.9 million to cover payroll costs for the sheriff’s office, jail, superior court, and prosecuting attorney’s office.
- $119,000 for two Superior Court commissioner positions to catch up on some of the criminal cases backlogged during the pandemic. The positions are temporary since the funds expire in 2024.
- $18.3 million for multiple projects and building expenses — a major renovation of the aging juvenile justice center, water and sewer projects, and creation of a 50-bed Regional Behavioral Health Recovery Center for mental health and substance abuse treatment. The Benton Franklin Juvenile Justice Center was originally built in 1979, and the detention wing was added on in 1996. It houses juvenile detention, courtrooms, mental health services, education and counseling services, volunteer programs, drug court, selective aggressive probation, special sex offender disposition alternative probation and family therapy. It also houses civil youth programs, such as guardian ad litem, truancy and youth at risk.
- $3.42 million to help businesses hire and retain workers, develop their workforce, provide rent and utility assistance, and fund other program assistance through a business grant partnership with the Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce.
- $1,500 to vaccinate about 100 people at the Benton Franklin Fair last year.
Franklin County
Franklin County Administrator Keith Johnson said they’ve spent or earmarked about $10 million of the $18.5 million in total ARPA funds they’ve been awarded. Unlike Benton County, Franklin still has several millions dollars left to allocate.
Some of that could go toward “revenue recovery,” Johnson said. But they’re also considering funding business grants, new water and sewer infrastructure, fire-ambulance equipment and more money for the sheriff’s office.
“Decisions on funding those projects will likely occur over the next couple of months,” Johnson wrote in an email to the Herald.
“Clearly we have more requests than we can fund, so we will have to prioritize those requests and determine which projects we fund. Some projects may be fully funded, some partial and there may be some we won’t be able to.”
So far, here are some of the major line items in Franklin County’s spending plan:
- $2.1 million for HVAC upgrades at the Franklin County Public Safety Building.
- $217,000 for Franklin County Sheriff’s Office uniforms, body cameras, body armor and to outfit a mobile command trailer.
- $315,000 for “sheriff emergency response equipment” and a command trailer.
- $77,000 for a coroner’s office morgue trailer.
- $339,000 for IT upgrades across the county, including wireless infrastructure upgrades, audio/visual upgrades and server replacements.
The county also lists funding for a biohazard equipment, improvements to the assessor’s office, and IT tech upgrades.
This story was originally published October 3, 2022 at 12:49 PM.
