Washington welcomes ARPA suggestions

The Washington City Council agreed to allocate $90,000 of its expected money from the American Rescue Plan Act to replace a lift station Monday night, but pledged to hear out plans for non-infrastructure spending of its remaining allocation from the federal legislation.

The approved lift station is a 40-year-old unit serving Parkside Estates and Green Meadows. Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent Jason Whisler said that while $200,000 had been earmarked for the project in 2026, it could be replaced now for just $90,000.

“The previous capital improvements plan had it marked for $200,000 … if you add in engineering expenses and design fees,” Whisler said. “You wouldn’t have to have any excavation fees with the DNR because we’re just going to take this one off the top and put the new one on, it’s about a 4-hour deal.”

Council Member Danielle Pettit-Majewski said while she approved the project, she felt the city needed to get its priorities straight for its ARPA money.

“This is a once in a generation opportunity with these moneys,” she said. “Rather than just having these things come to up to us randomly every meeting, we need to be having a bigger conversation about what we want to do and how we want to invest this money.”

Pettit-Majewski proposed that the city should focus on social spending, as she has mentioned at previous council discussions on the topic.

“This is a public health infrastructure bill for resiliency in the event of a next pandemic and recovery moving forward,” she said. “Thinking, five or 10 years from today, how do we make our community more resilient so we don’t have the same catastrophic impact of another pandemic.”

Mayor Jaron Rosien declined to specifically call for a public forum on the issue, but did invite members of the public to speak their thoughts on ARPA funds at regular council meetings moving forward.

“I would remind people … that we have public comment at every meeting, where comment is welcome on ARPA funds or any topic,” he said. “We had some consensus that spending this money in an unconventional way, in a social services way, in a creative way, was on the table, and I think it’d be helpful if specific ideas in that vein were brought to council.”

City Finance Director Kelsey Brown said the city would have around $322,000 left in its ARPA account after earmarking the rest for the lift station, a sewer-boring project, and a half-million dollar water main repair on West Madison.

While the ARPA cash is as flexible as federal allocations typically get, Rosien said using $90,000 to pay for what might otherwise be a more expensive project could be net better.

“Our CIP has $200,000 for this, this uses 90, and that kind of clears up that $200,000 in that time, when council can then pivot with more flexibility,” he said.

One factor complicating the process is the number of strings attached to different uses of the cash. City officials said expectations for water infrastructure spending were clear months earlier than others, and generally easier to meet.

“Infrastructure like this is the lowest hanging fruit that’s most guaranteed for ease of reconciliation with the federal government,” Rosien said. “But Danielle is absolutely correct, if that’s the precedent we set, we can look forward to another department head with another request in the next two weeks, and then another … all of which are valid, but it’s up to council to decide how they want to steer these funds.”

Further entangling those attached strings is lingering uncertainty about rules for the money. While the federal Treasury announced that it would accommodate funds spent in accordance with an interim set of rules, many local government officials, including the Washington County Board of Supervisors, remain hesitant to act until the final guidelines are announced.

“Speaking from experience, they can change their mind and require things that we didn’t anticipate,” County Supervisor Marcus Fedler said in October. “There’s nothing more frustrating than agreeing to do something and then having it changed three months later … I don’t see any reason to put the county in jeopardy, spending money that we would have to take from other places to do it.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com