LAWTON – Cache and Elgin will each receive $487,500 from Comanche County’s share of American Rescue Plan Act dollars, while Indiahoma and Faxon will get $100,000 apiece. Chattanooga, Fletcher, Geronimo, Medicine Park, and Sterling will each get $225,000.
The Comanche County Board of Commissioners voted 3-0 Monday to divide $2.3 million in ARPA funds among those communities. Lawton was not on the list because it received its allocation ARPA money directly from the federal government.
The county has received about $23 million under ARPA, a 2021 federal law which provides relief for local governments dealing with the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Towns may use ARPA funds only for water- or sewer-related projects that would qualify for aid from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund and Drinking Water State Revolving Fund loan programs, said David Floyd, an attorney with the Norman-based Floyd Law Firm. Floyd is working with the county on ARPA-related issues.
“As long as it’s an approved project under one of those, it’s also an approved project under ARPA,” Floyd said.
Floyd said his firm has set up a web portal where towns may upload information about their projects. Once that information has been reviewed, the firm will send each town an award acceptance a letter – essentially, a contract between the town and the commission saying that the town will comply with bidding requirements and other rules.
“Once we have that and it’s signed, we’ll work with the clerk’s office to deal with payment for your projects,” Floyd said.
The commission’s announcement prompted questions from representatives of the communities receiving ARPA money from the county, including the types of projects that are eligible for funding.
“Why only sewer and water?” asked Elgin Mayor JJ Francais.
Floyd said when the county allocates ARPA money to a community, those dollars must be tied to a specific project that falls into one of five categories. Those categories are:
- Supporting public health costs.
- Addressing the economic impact of the pandemic.
- Replacing lost public-sector revenue.
- Providing premium pay for essential workers.
- Investing in water, sewer and broadband projects.
“If the county can’t do it at their level, we have concerns about the city doing it at their level,” Floyd said. “So what we decided was that the best way to do it, in order to protect the county, was to just limit it to water and sewer projects.”
He said the towns all received additional allocations of ARPA dollars and may use those pots of money for other projects.
Fletcher Mayor Dick Herrin wanted to know if the town could use its portion of ARPA dollars to retire an existing loan.
“If we have a project where we had to replace a section of sewer line in the last six months and we had to borrow the money to do it, could we use some ARPA money to pay off that loan?” he said.
Floyd said, “No, you cannot. ARPA funds cannot be used for debt service payments because you’ve got a loan out there on it.”