The Select Board discusses reallocating ARPA funds for other town projects and initiatives.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
SOUTH HADLEY — With 2024 in the past, the South Hadley Select Board discussed its remaining American Rescue Plan Act funds during its meeting on Dec. 17.
South Hadley was appropriated $5.2 million of the $350 billion made available to state and local governments for COVID-19-related recovery through ARPA funds.
The town used a portion of the funding, including approximately $800,000 for remediation efforts at South Hadley High School after mold was detected two days before the start of the 2021-22 school year.
Smaller sums were also used for various COVID-19 response efforts, Town Administrator Lisa Wong noted.
South Hadley then had $4.3 million in ARPA funds to help the community recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The funds needed to be allocated by Dec. 31, 2024, and need to be spent by Dec. 31, 2026.
The Select Board received a spreadsheet that included what has been allocated, what’s been expended, the balance and recommended reallocations.
After allocating most of the funds for multiple projects in town and proposing reallocation of certain funds, the town had approximately $1.26 million remaining.
Town Administrator Lisa Wong discussed three requests for funds be directed to three separate programs.
The first program is a public safety wellness program, and the request was for $4,454.29 with unallocated funds that the Select Board has not voted on yet.
Wong explained that the program is an initiative created by Police Chief Jennifer Gundersen to address the social, emotional and well-being of the town’s public safety officers.
“This is a tough field emotionally and physically and the chief is creating a comprehensive program that is a combination of webinars and speakers as well as actually creating a specialized area within the Police Department for wellness and decompression,” Wong said.
The next recommendation was for two reallocations — one from accommodations and the rest from the Dry Brook Aquaphor project, to be directed to human services social programs.
The total allocation was approximately $9,150.
The town already has an existing line item for medical transport along with grants but there are a variety of programs that are offered Council on Aging building and Wong explained, “instead of allocating specific amounts of those programs we thought we would generalize it.”
The programs include things like medical transport and other programs but also include new initiatives includes assisting people with their utility bills.
One of the big requests was an additional $30,000 to Neighbors Helping Neighbors, a community-driven food pantry dedicated to combating hunger and promoting food security.
The proposed reallocation funds would be coming from either the Land of Low Value, Digitization and/or Judd Brook projects.
Wong explained, “These are projects that are ongoing. This is money that we’re using, these are slow going projects that requires a lot of research and diligence. We plan to use the money but we believe that because it’s kind of slow going, we can probably reallocate $10,000 in the next two years towards something else.”
John Hine from Neighbors Helping Neighbors joined the meeting to discuss that through November, the business is running a deficit of almost $6,000.
Hine explained that food insecurity has increased causing more families to consistently visit the center. Neighbors Helping Neighbors gave out 248,000 pounds of food in 2023 and Hine said they are looking at 265,000 to 270,000 pounds in 2024.
He talked about the current financial situation and ARPA funding and said, “That’s including the $40,000 roughly that we received in ARPA grants from both the town and the state. If you take away those ARPA funds, we’d be losing $50-$60,000 a year. We have cash reserves that can sustain us for a year and a half maybe two years if we stretch it out and don’t get any new sources of funding.”
The Select Board approved reallocating $20,000 of the $50,000 from the Land of Low Value project, $20,000 from Digitization and $26,065 from the Judd Brook project to Neighbors Helping Neighbors.
The Select Board approved the other two recommendations as well.
