Linn County Supervisors delay ARPA decisions again

The supervisors are now supposed to decide where to allocate $13 million on Wednesday

Oct. 17, 2022 11:50 am

Linn County Supervisors (from left) Stacey Walker, Ben Rogers, and Louis Zumbach listen to public comment during a meeting of the Linn County Board of Supervisors to discuss the proposed Palo solar farm project in Palo, Iowa on Monday, August 29, 2022. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)

The Linn County Board of Supervisors again delayed its second round of American Rescue Plan Act funding allocations to its Wednesday formal meeting.

During the work session on Monday, the supervisors said they need “a little more time” and voted unanimously to move the final decision to later this week.

“I’m going to ask to use one more day,” Supervisor Chair Ben Rogers said. “We’ve sent staff what we think are our priorities and we need a little more time on a few applications to make sure we have adequate information to make decisions. This is millions of dollars and even having that extra week to review those dozens of pages proved to be tedious.”

The final ARPA funding decisions are now supposed to be made during Wednesday’s meeting at 11 a.m. in the Jean Oxley Public Services Building. The supervisors have $13 million to allocate to nonprofits and local governments.

The applicants — among them not-for-profits and other local governments — have requested around $77 million. Some 53 eligible applications, totaling more than $34 million, remain unfunded from the first round of awards made in April. Since then, 72 more applications, totaling almost $43 million, have been submitted.

This is the second time the supervisors have delayed the allocation decisions. The supervisors were supposed to decide last Wednesday, but originally pushed the allocation choices to Monday.

Rogers’ fellow supervisors, Stacey Walker and Louie Zumbach, agreed with the chairman of the board.

“It is really, really difficult to make these far-reaching decisions in a three-member board while staying in the confines of open meetings laws,” Walker said. “It’s really challenging. We need a couple more days. This will cause some heartburn in organizations in our community that have been waiting a longtime to hear.”

The largest remaining request from round one — from the Cedar Rapids Public Library — is for $6 million. The money would help fund a new west-side library and opportunity center to replace the Ladd Library, which is leased and situated in a strip mall at 3750 Williams Blvd SW.