Attached is a resolution to appropriate additional ARPA funds for technology costs, election equipment, conference tables, professional service agreement for financial process improvement, asbestos abatement and the raze and removal of property, and other vehicles and equipment.
The 2025 budget includes a Homeless initiative project within the Police Department. The initiative included approximately $6,100 in one-time technology costs that staff indicated would come from ARPA. This action will officially create the 2024 budget adjustment for these one-time costs so they can be purchased before year-end.
After the November election, the Clerk’s office indicated that they needed 10 additional Badger Books for future elections.
A truck in the engineering fleet was in the 2024 CIP for replacement. However, the quote came in over budget, and there was only enough money in the budget to cover the cost of the vehicle, with nothing remaining to outfit it like the rest of the fleet. This ARPA allocation would cover the additional items needed such as toppers, slide out cargo tray, and more.
Field Operations is now fully staffed in Central Garage. However, additional technology items need to be ordered, including a laptop, docking station, and software to improve efficiency for all garage staff.
Library previously had ARPA funds allocated for public furnishings. Included in that ARPA allocation was the purchase of folding tables for the conference rooms. Additional funds are needed to complete this last piece of the purchases.
Finance had discussed with the Council during the 2025 budget workshops, the desire to have a third party come in and look at a few processes within the Finance department for efficiencies. This ARPA allocation would allow Finance to sign a professional service agreement for this purpose.
As the City has discussed for the last couple of years, the ARPA funds need to be encumbered by December 31, 2024, and spent by December 31, 2026. In an abundance of caution, I am also recommending we allocate ARPA funds for the following items: asbestos abatement of former Washington Elementary School, raze and removal of former Washington Elementary School, and Public Work’s two truck chassis and two dump bodies, plows, wings, and tailgate spreaders. These three projects are also on the December 10th Council agenda for approval, and are able to be encumbered by December 31, 2024. Each of these items currently has other funding sources available to them. My recommendation is to create ARPA as an additional funding source for each of these projects. In January 2025, Finance will need to go through our ARPA project allocations and determine which projects were encumbered by December 31, 2024. Any project that was not able to be encumbered, will need a budget adjustment to remove the ARPA funding. At that point, we will know if we need these three projects to be funded by ARPA or if we can do a budget adjustment to revert them back to their original funding source. This will ensure that we have fully committed our ARPA funds and will have no risk of returning any ARPA funds.
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The attached resolution would appropriate an additional $935,000 of ARPA funds. The City has currently over allocated ARPA funds, and this would have the “infrastructure” portion of ARPA funds over allocated by $1,273,801. Finance’s goal has been to over allocate in case some of the previously allocated projects come in under budget. At this point, finance had been made aware that approximately $400,000 may not be able to be encumbered in time. After December 31, 2024, the City is not able to allocate ARPA funds to any new project. However, we are able to spend the previously allocated funds until December 31, 2026. There is sufficient interest income in the ARPA fund to cover any amount that remains over allocated.
Please contact me if you have any additional questions.
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