Escucha Mi Voz pitches request to county for ARPA funds

With their discussion topic now on a meeting agenda, speakers from advocacy group Escucha Mi Voz packed the Washington County Board of Supervisors’ office Tuesday morning for public comments.

The group is lobbying the county — and other local governments in Southeast Iowa — for relief checks through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to workers excluded from federal relief efforts, many of them immigrants.

“Because of our immigration status, we couldn’t receive any federal help,” said group member Ninoska Campos. “We couldn’t get unemployment, we didn’t have the same luck as others who did get federal help … it’s something very frustrating, to see my people without any type of help, knowing that during this pandemic we never abandoned this economy because we have children to take care of. If we got sick, we couldn’t go to the hospital because we didn’t have health insurance.”

The group’s proposal calls for one-time $1,400 relief checks to an estimated 250 excluded workers in the county, and for an additional 3,000 essential workers. While checks that many excluded workers would cost $350,000, tacking on another 3,000 essential workers would cost $4.55 million, an amount greater than the county’s total ARPA balance that would require joint action with cities to afford.

County resident Maria Ramirez said the pandemic was especially hard on immigrant workers.

“They don’t have the option to not work, even if they’re sick,” she said. “They work on farms, and on the farms you have to feed the animals every day, and cleaning, you can’t miss a single day. If somebody was sick, they still have to work. And I feel like if they had to work, they should also have a stimulus. A lot of times you guys don’t realize how much that can help someone.”

Some speakers during the public comment period were not excluded workers themselves, but said they agreed with the idea.

“The amount of money requested for the excluded workers fund is a small amount, it’s less than 10% of the total available, it’s easily possible to fund this effort and accomplish a number of other projects,” Washington resident Roger Farmer said. “The bible is filled with passages that call for us to care for immigrants and refugees in both the Old and New Testament. This fund is a wonderful opportunity to do that.”

Some, however, disagreed.

“My opinion is these ARPA funds were not intended to go to individuals by Congress,” said Jeff Cuddeback, another county resident. “There were multiple routes of funding from the federal government to individuals … My opinion (is) that it’d be best to spend those funds on physical items, reduce future taxes, and hopefully add some efficiencies whether it be office space or something of that nature.”

A summarized letter from the federal Treasury, provided by advocates, did outline individual payments as a legally valid use for the ARPA cash.

“Under the final rule, it is acceptable and appropriate to limit a cash assistance program to a subset of an eligible population that has been especially impacted by the pandemic or its negative economic effects,” an excerpt from the Treasury letter said.

The supervisors, for their part, gave minimal input on the agenda item. Board Chair Richard Young cautioned that any action on the county’s ARPA funds would not come quickly.

“We’re going to take our time doing this because we have until Dec. 31 of 2024 to make the decision of how we’re going to spend these funds,” he said. “We want to make a good decision when we make this. We’re not going to hurry up and rush this decision. This is not something that’s going to happen right away.”

The county is holding a public hearing on ARPA funds at its next meeting, Feb. 22 at the county courthouse at 9 a.m., to hear out further comments on the use of its roughly $4.3 million in ARPA funds.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com