La Plata County staff have been parsing through the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s final rules as the county looks to decide how to spend millions in COVID-19 relief money.
The Department of the Treasury released its final rules Jan. 6 for how counties can spend the money they receive from the American Rescue Plan Act. La Plata County’s Finance Department and its legal team have been dissecting the rules to understand how the money can be used as the county plans to finance projects that are “generational in nature.”
“Staff has been poring over those (and) we've been talking with our state partners and experts,” said County Manager Chuck Stevens. “We’ve been following the national conversation with the National Association of Counties to help interpret the rules to make sure that we fully understand what our constraints are with regard to expending these funds.”
County discussions have been delayed by the Department of the Treasury’s release of its final rules in early January. A discussion with the county commissioners was slated for December 2021, but that meeting has since been pushed back to March 1 as the Finance Department and legal team for the county comb through the more than 400-page document that dictates how counties can spend the money.
County commissioners held previous work sessions in August, but those sessions were operating under interim guidelines the Department of the Treasury issued in May 2021.
The county also hosted meetings to hear project suggestions from community members in September 2021, but the county had to wait for the final rules before it could hold more concrete discussions and take steps forward.
At the county’s work session March 1, the finance and legal teams will present their interpretation of the Department of the Treasury’s regulations to the county commissioners. County commissioners can then use that information to provide further guidance to county staff members, including narrowing down areas where they hope to focus the money, Stevens said.
The work session will also feature discussion about how the county can disburse the money, said county spokesman Ted Holteen.
After reading the final rules, finance staff members have been considering transferring the money into the county’s general fund.
“The idea is that instead of trying to do 20 to 25 individual projects and then all the reporting paperwork that has to go with it, the finance people have decided it’s easier to take the money into the general fund and then just distribute it that way,” Holteen said.
Doing so would reduce the paperwork for both the county and those who receive the money and reduce costs, streamlining the disbursement process, he said.
“The accounting has to be done to the dime, and so I think the most efficient way to do that is the least bit of accounting,” he said.
The rules as they were initially written placed a significant burden on smaller counties across the country. The federal government outlined a stringent auditing process by which counties had to produce extensive financial documentation all the way down to subrecipients to show that the money was spent in accordance with the Department of the Treasury’s guidelines.
“The original rules as they were drafted were going to be really cumbersome, not just for La Plata County, but for mid- to small-sized counties across the nation,” Stevens said. “The final guidance that came out did provide a mechanism that I think is going to streamline how La Plata County will be able to bring the funds in and use them in such a way that we’re not going to have some of the more stringent constraints around auditing.”
While the federal government’s final rules offer smaller counties more flexibility in how they distribute the relief money, they will not change how the county approaches the funds.
“We’re going to do the right things because we’re accountable to our taxpayers to be able to demonstrate where all of this money went and that it was spent in accordance with the guidelines that were established by the federal government,” Stevens said.
La Plata County will receive $10.9 million in federal recovery money from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act. The county received the first installment, about $5.5 million, in May 2021 and will receive the second in May 2022.
During a stakeholder input session with the county in September, community organizations discussed affordable housing, behavioral health services, premium pay for health care workers, water infrastructure and broadband as possible destinations for the money.
The county has also solicited input from residents through public meetings and a form on its website.
County commissioners have expressed interest in prioritizing investments in affordable housing, broadband expansion and behavioral health, Stevens said.
According to the Department of the Treasury, counties can use the money to replace lost revenue; provide premium pay for essential workers; improve water, sewer and broadband infrastructure; support community health efforts or defray the economic impacts of the pandemic.
County commissioners are already considering dozens of proposed projects community members have put forward. The commissioners are not interested in covering the county’s operating expenses or other short-term projects, Stevens said.
“They want to invest these dollars in a very strategic, thoughtful way back into the community,” he said. “They want to invest in projects that solve problems, and they want to invest in projects that are lasting, that are generational in nature.”
The work session on March 1 will be another step in that direction. The county has until December 2024 to spend the money.
“One thing that we’re really thankful for is we’re not in a rush, and the board has made that very clear,” Stevens said. “The board has the luxury of time, of being thoughtful (and) very deliberate.”
ahannon@durangoherald.com
