The City of Covington was awarded $35,914,130 in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to help its residents and businesses recover economically from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Covington officials are using the money in a wide variety of ways to support and expand programs and services – or create new ones – that make people’s lives better and strengthen the local economy by helping to create jobs and protect businesses.
- General guidelines from the federal government mandate that the funds be spent:
- To support urgent response efforts aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 and bringing the pandemic under control.
- To replace “lost” local government revenue used for vital public services and to retain jobs.
- To support immediate economic stabilization for households and businesses.
- To address systemic public health and economic challenges that have contributed to the inequal impact of the pandemic.
Covington officials spent much of autumn 2021 discussing how to spend that federal money, with the Board of Commissioners holding brainstorm sessions and engaging the public with an ARPA survey that was filled out by nearly 700 Covington residents and advocates.
On Jan. 25, 2022, the Board of Commissioners voted to allocate Covington’s anticipated ARPA funds into categories or “buckets,” as required by the federal government. Those 11 categories included things like affordable housing, public health, small business assistance, social services for residents, public Wi-Fi, job creations, and to fill gaps in tax revenues that fund basic City services.
Those “buckets’ can be seen at ARPA allocations.
In the months since, the City and its various partners have been working to implement programs, services, and initiatives that bring those goals to life. Some of the projects are already active, but many are in the planning and/or implementation stage.
The progress in spending the money can be seen on this dashboard, which is being regularly updated: http://data.covingtonky.gov/ARPA/
The ARPA-related orders passed by the Board of Commissioners: