La Plata County has taken a concrete step toward spending millions of dollars in federal pandemic aid in the coming months and year.

County commissioners Matt Salka, Marsha Porter-Norton and Clyde Church broke down the distribution of $10.9 million the county will receive from the American Rescue Plan Act during a board work session Tuesday. The three commissioners earmarked funding for affordable housing and homelessness, broadband expansion, and what the county has termed the “social impacts” of COVID-19.

“At this point, you’ve got (about) $10 million. How would you like to see it invested?” County Manager Chuck Stevens asked commissioners.

Porter-Norton first proposed splitting the pot of money equally with 33.3% going toward housing solutions and homelessness, 33.3% toward broadband expansion in the incorporated county and 33.3% toward the social impacts of COVID-19, which include behavioral health, child care, substance abuse and other issues highlighted by the pandemic.

Salka, who has led the county’s efforts on broadband, suggested reducing the budget for broadband in favor of housing, acknowledging that tackling housing could also help pull in other opportunities for broadband expansion.

“More rooftops means more attraction for (internet service providers), more businesses, more grocery stores, more job opportunities,” he said. “That could also help pushing toward my broadband initiative.”

Porter-Norton and Church agreed with Salka. Both commented on the continued challenge of affordable housing and the opportunity that the federal money provides to make a dent in the issue.

The commissioners agreed to a final split of 40% to housing, 25% to broadband and 35% toward social impacts. According to those percentages, the county will put about $4 million toward affordable housing and homelessness, $2.5 million to broadband expansion and $3.5 million toward community impacts from the pandemic.

With the direction of the commissioners, county staff members will now begin parsing through the many ideas that have been submitted over the last year by residents and local groups. By Porter-Norton’s and Stevens’ estimate, the county has received about 63,000 requests across 50 different investment areas from the public.

Two potential destinations for the money that did not make the final cut were premium pay for essential workers, and water and sewer infrastructure.

The county identified potential issues with the distribution of premium pay and could not find a way to distribute the money that would be equitable and fair, Porter-Norton said.

The commissioners did not prioritize water or sewer infrastructure spending, noting that additional funding from President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act are expected to aid in those projects.

“It’s not that these areas aren’t important. It’s that there’s other sources of funding for those,” Porter-Norton said.

During Tuesday’s meeting, the commissioners discussed ways to use the funds to expand the pool of money and sustain projects over a longer period.

“It can be used by another organization to put in a federal grant and use our money to leverage it,” Church said. “We can turn this $10 million into much more impact on the community than we ever thought we could.”

Church also noted that the county could use the relief money to pay for projects over time.

“It would be nice to make it clean and give somebody a block of money, but we might get a lot more mileage out of it by allocating it over time,” he said.

The Department of the Treasury set a 2026 deadline for local governments to expend the money, according to the agency’s final rules for the stimulus released Jan. 6.

But the county is taking an approach by which it incorporates the money into county funds before it is redistributed in an effort to decrease the reporting required by the federal government and provides the county with more flexibility in spending the money.

“There’s no change in the reporting that we have to do for auditors, that stays the same,” said Adam Rogers, director of finance for La Plata County. “But it’s a lot less red tape with the Treasury and it creates some opportunities for us as a county and its residents.”

Instead of distributing the funds directly, which would require extensive receipts and reporting to the Department of the Treasury, the county will use the $10 million to pay for county services and payroll for four months and then take the corresponding $10 million surplus from property and sales tax revenue and set it aside for investment.

The money will then become county funds, allowing the county greater discretion and more time.

“This will free up and give us more options instead of the constrictions that the Treasury had given us,” Salka said.

With the county’s priorities and the financial maneuvering of the money solidified, the commissioners asked county staff members to also look into a contractor like United Way of Southwest Colorado to assist with the distribution of the social impact funds.

In addition to behavioral health, child care and substance abuse, Porter-Norton added food security, public health, and upskilling and reskilling workers as potential areas to invest social impact funds. She also pointed to targeting resources and programs that will help the youths of La Plata County.

Porter-Norton argued that with such a broad umbrella under “social impacts,” professionals in those fields could help identify the most promising projects where the county could have the greatest impact.

“I do not know how to make those decisions in a qualified way,” she said.

The county did not set a time frame for when it will begin allocating the money to projects, but the commissioners want to begin spending the funds this year.

“I wouldn’t want for some of the more pressing issues that we wait another four or five months after April 1,” Porter-Norton said. “... We know housing projects take a long time.”

As the mechanics of the relief money become clearer, the county continues to eye projects that make a meaningful difference now and in the future.

“We want to solve big problems,” Stevens said. “We want to be able to look back in decades from now and go: That’s where we spent our (American Rescue Plan Act) money.”

ahannon@durangoherald.com