Wheeling City Council To Discuss Spending COVID Relief Funds
Photo by Eric Ayres Trending
Wheeling officials on Monday night will hold the first public work session to discuss ways to spend nearly $29 million in relief funding the city has been allocated through the federal American Rescue Plan.
The work session will take place in city council chambers at 5 p.m. Monday at the City-County Building on Chapline Street downtown and will be open to the public.
Mayor Glenn Elliott announced the meeting this week and indicated that this is the first step to get the ball rolling on ARP projects in the city over the next two years or so.
"This meeting will be just to start the conversation moving forward on where we want to spend those monies that total about $29 million," Elliott said. "I believe we need to spend it by 2024. It's actually going to be a challenge to make sure we have all the projects queued up to get those funds spent properly, but we'll start the process next Monday."
Municipalities across the state of West Virginia and across the nation were allocated federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds last year as part of the ARP's Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds program. The city of Wheeling has already received the first of two payments of more than $14 million from the distribution of these funds. Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron on Wednesday said he expected the second and final distribution to be received around mid-May.
City leaders have noted that the one-time windfall comes with very specific guidelines as to how the money can be spent, but the primary intention of the distribution is to bring relief to communities that were impacted by the pandemic.
According to the U.S. Department of Treasury rules, the funds must be used to replace lost public sector revenue, respond to the far-reaching public health and negative economic impacts of the pandemic, provide premium pay for essential workers and invest in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure.
Elliott said every member of Wheeling City Council, as well as city administrators and staff, has some ideas about how to spend the money. City leaders have already received input from the public on how to spend these funds, and they will be inviting the public to submit proposals moving forward.
"City staff is working on a form that will be online on the city's website for people and for organizations to submit written proposals of how they think the funding should be spent," Elliott explained. "There are a lot of rules, guidelines and red tape associated with those funds. We can't just spend them on anything. So our hope is, if you have proposals -- please take some time to read over the rules and regulations just a little bit to get an idea about what is eligible and what is not."
Proposal forms and information about ARP guidelines are expected to be available on the city's website in the coming days.
Monday night's meeting will be a work session, and the public is welcome to attend. However, the open meeting will not be a platform to bring new proposals to the city for spontaneous discussion.
"(Council) will be asking all those who have submitted written proposals to attend and be available to answer any questions about their proposals," Elliott said. "This is just a first go around to get some ideas out there."
The mayor said there will likely be two or three more ARP work sessions held in the coming months.
"But if there are some obvious, consensus projects, we may move forward with them incrementally at upcoming council meetings," he said.