The Board of Supervisors, at its Tuesday meeting, approved the County Executive’s proposal for how the County should spend the first $150 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
The County Executive’s recommendation for the following priority areas:
- Homelessness and Housing: $59 million (39 percent of allocation)
- Health: $19.8 million (13 percent of allocation)
- Economic Response: $19.8 million (13 percent of allocation)
In addition to the County Executive’s recommendations, the Board of Supervisors authorized premium pay for eligible workers employed by Sacramento County who have performed essential work since the start of the public health emergency. The Essential Workers premium pay will cost $11.4 million, or 8 percent of the County’s ARPA allocation.
Additionally, the Board approved at its Sept. 28 meeting a $5 million allocation for each of the five supervisorial districts, which accounts for $25 million or 17 percent of the Phase One ARPA funding.
Finally, in order to minimize risk to the County, ensure a centralized grant management process, and track and assure program and fiscal integrity—with no impact to the County’s General Fund—$15 million, or 10 percent of funding will be set aside for program administration.
Examples of the types of investments in each of the categories:
- Housing and Homelessness: Affordable housing, permanent supportive housing, rental assistance, outreach and support services for people experiencing homelessness, sanctioned encampments and community safety.
- Health: COVID mitigation efforts, mental health services and programs, substance abuse treatment programs and services, meals for homebound seniors and access to healthcare for hardest-hit communities.
- Economic Response: Direct assistance to small businesses and non-profit organizations in the unincorporated County, funding to Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) to support businesses countywide, and grants to chambers of commerce and Property and Business Improvement Districts (PBIDs).
Staff will develop recommended projects within each of the priority areas and, based on projects approved by the Board, will announce a launch of a solicitation of proposals for any external use of funds at a later date. The process will follow County guidelines with stipulations in place for necessary documentation tracked for reimbursement purposes in compliance with US Treasury Guidelines.
The proposal was the result of feedback from residents, business and community organizations who provided input in a Community Needs Survey regarding the most important issues in Sacramento County related to recovering from the COVID pandemic. Concurrently, County departments were surveyed to identify specific ARPA-related project requests.
Following completion of the surveys, results were analyzed and ranked into priority issue areas based on their level of community importance and eligibility with allowable uses under ARPA. The priority issue areas were ranked in the following order:
- Housing
- Homelessness
- Health
- Economic Response
- Essential Workers
- Infrastructure
- Education
- Broadband
On July 27, 2021, the Board received a presentation on the priority issues areas and directed staff to develop proposed funding allocation recommendations based on the identified priorities.
The Board will hear recommendations on the initial ARPA project-level funding in December or January of 2022.
