Panel OKs spending rescue funds

Springdale council approves hazard pay for police, firefighters

SPRINGDALE — The City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to spend some of $ 10 million the city received as part of the American Rescue Plan. Two area residents asked the city leaders to reflect on how the money will be spent.

The council approved $675,000 of the recovery plan money to pay hazard pay to members of the city’s Police and Fire departments who worked on the front lines during the pandemic.

“And they continue to work,” said Mayor Doug Sprouse.

The council also approved a contract with BKD accounting firm in Rogers and Disaster Recovery Service to assist the city in the accounting and compliance of the recovery plan funds. The cost would not exceed $ 150,000, said Colby Fulfer, the city’s chief of staff.

City officials figured the city lost $9,236,788 during the pandemic on everything from library fines to rent at Arvest Ballpark. The City Council agreed and designated that amount as lost income, which gives the city more opportunities as to how it can spend the money, Sprouse explained.

Sarah Moore of Fayetteville, representing the Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition, asked the council to consider spending the money in direct assistance for residents — be it relief for businesses, help with household costs or even providing food.

Moore asked Springdale officials to hold community events to hear from residents about what they need and how they think the money should be spent. She urged officials to go out to areas where these residents gather and talk to them.

“Out to all pockets, in every language,” she said. “Don’t make them come to this building,” she said of the city’s new Criminal Justice Complex, where the City Council meets until construction of the second phase of the Municipal Campus is completed.

Fulfer said after the meeting that the city does plan to hold such community meetings.

“The folks most impacted by the pandemic should get the money,” Moore concluded.

Sprouse reported that the city provided $ 800,000 to local nonprofit agencies that work directly with people in need. The money came from

an extra allotment to the city’s Community Development Block Grant as part of the covid-19 relief funds last year.

The city keeps in touch with these organizations to learn of additional needs, said Patsy Christie, the city’s Planning Director. Her department oversees the block grant funds.

“We need to be confident that the people who are getting the money understand and complete the reporting required, or the city will have to pay the money back,” Sprouse said.

Fulfer said the city last year received $1 million for rental assistance from Washington County’s covid-19 relief funds but returned some of the money when residents stopped asking for it.

The City Council last month agreed to provide $87,176 — $1 per Springdale resident — from its rescue plan money to support the Northwest Arkansas Council’s efforts at education and providing vaccinations against covid-19. All cities in the region received similar requests.

“We are going to do what most impacts most of our residents for the longest period of time,” Sprouse concluded. “The money was meant to be spent on what Treasury rules say it was for.” The U.S. Treasury Department administers the American Rescue Plan.

Approved uses of the money include assistance to households, businesses and industries suffering with economic losses; premium pay for essential workers; and investments in water, sewer and broad infrastructure, a federal website states.

In other business, the City Council:

• Approved a conditional use of a property on Bitter Lane on Fitzgerald Mountain. Zach Brothers, who owns the property, plans to provide the site for primitive camping for cyclists using the mountain’s trails.

• Approved an agreement with Arkansas & Missouri Railroad to open a street crossing at Maple Avenue and close the street crossing at Caudle Avenue. The city also agrees to spend $3 million over the next six years upgrading other railroad-street crossings in the city.