The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021. The $1.2 trillion package funneled $350 billion to cities and counties as tax revenue plummeted and expenses related to the pandemic mounted.
The first tranche, sent last year, was focused on recovering from the pandemic. In some local jurisdictions, that meant law enforcement agencies got millions, a federal oversight website tracking ARPA funds shows.
Independence spent more than $100,000 on ballistic helmets and $9,740 on sniper rifles. Both purchases were categorized under the “services to disproportionately impacted communities” spending group.
ARPA rules released by the U.S. Treasury are broad — anything but a deposit into a rainy day fund or using the money for pensions or debt services is allowable. But for spending on public safety, the guidelines explicitly encourage initiatives that get at the root causes of crime like housing and mental health, according to Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute, an organization advocating for criminal legal system reforms.
“This is a huge amount of money without nearly enough oversight as to how localities are actually spending these dollars so that’s why you get $10,000 worth of assault rifles and somehow that’s a permissible use,” Rahman said. “It doesn’t at all follow the Treasury guidance. But as ARPA was passed, there wasn’t an oversight mechanism to make sure that states and localities are abiding by the guidance of how this money should be spent. So that’s a huge challenge.”
Gwen Grant, president of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, said Independence’s purchases are not illegal under ARPA, but questioned if they were ethical.
It’s “unconscionable to me that they would choose to invest those funds in that manner rather than investing in truly rebuilding community from a city perspective,” Grant said. “What types of services and relief did they provide for the residents?”
Another $1.4 million went to retention payments to Independence police officers while $1.6 million went to improve public infrastructure and facilities, and $300,000 was used to start a city health department.
Independence City Manager Zachary Walker did not respond or comment on the spending when contacted by phone and email.
Clay County relief spending
In Clay County, more than half of the ARPA projects went to fund the sheriff’s office, according to initial reporting on the federal website which lags behind local spending.
That included more than $2 million for a locking system at the detention center as well as cameras; $828,000 for a radio encryption system; and $702,000 for software.
Clay County Presiding Commissioner Jerry Nolte said law enforcement is a primary responsibility of government.
“We need to make sure that to the best of our ability, we are properly financing and funding law enforcement,” he said.
Several of the expenses for the sheriff’s office, Nolte said, were related to mitigating COVID-19 in the Clay County jail.
Meanwhile, $924,578 went towards COVID vaccinations and the Clay County Health Center got $655,000, among other expenditures.
A lot of the funds are also going toward municipalities in Clay County for water-related infrastructure projects, Nolte added.
Cass County
At nearly $1.5 million, one of the largest ARPA undertakings in Cass County has been the purchase and tear down of an old hotel on County Line Road.
The blighted building was demolished and the property was identified as a location for the construction of a sheriff’s office annex serving northern Cass County.
According to the oversight website, the county has spent about $374,000 on health department expenses including equipment and payroll.
Cass County Presiding Commissioner Bob Huston said the ARPA money wasn’t necessary because the county has grown and revenue didn’t take a hit during the pandemic. But it has helped make projects move along faster without raising taxes on residents.
“When your county grows, everything gets bigger,” he said. “You have a bigger jail, you’ve got a bigger health department, it’s just part of the growing pains we have.”
‘A remarkable opportunity’
Rahman, with the Vera Institute, said some localities have been thoughtful in their public safety spending, starting evidence-based initiatives like violence intervention programs. But other elected officials have reverted to the status quo: police, prosecutors, courts, jails and prisons.
“We have a remarkable opportunity and really a once in a generation opportunity to build the infrastructure for community safety and not just the infrastructure for the criminal legal system as we currently know it,” Rahman said.
In Kansas City, a substantial portion of the first chunk of funds went to revenue replacement. City Manager Brian Platt said Kansas City relies heavily on activity related revenue like sales tax from food, beverages and hotels.
“The biggest benefit to the city from those (ARPA) funds was ensuring that we can continue to provide essential city services and to avoid layoffs and reductions,” Platt said.
But another need became apparent as the pandemic continued.
“One of the biggest challenges that’s been exacerbated by the pandemic is the housing cost burden that our residents have had here,” he said. “Housing affordability is much more difficult for people, incomes are lower, rents are going up and the supply of housing is not necessarily meeting the demand. So we’ve tried to focus these funds on initiatives related to affordable housing.”
The city dedicated more than $6.6 million to a housing trust fund and a pallet community that will provide emergency housing relief, the oversight website said.
The second distribution from the federal government earlier this year took a “right turn,” according to Emily Brock, director of the Government Finance Officers Association’s Federal Liaison Center.
“It’s really been not only the rescue that it needed to pull itself out, but now it’s being spent in transformational ways across the country to put us on a better foot moving forward,” she said.
“It’s going to have reverberating effects, especially for those who are spending the money on things that could have economic benefit in the future, like small business assistance or workforce development or housing.”
Cities and counties are also investing in infrastructure and broadband.
Spending data on the second tranche has not yet been updated on the federal tracking website.
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