Yesterday, Governor Tony Evers announced that $205.7 million has been directed to the 1,825 participating Wisconsin local governments under the American Rescue Plan Act’s (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program.
Under the SLFRF program, counties, large municipalities, and tribal governments received their own allocation from the federal government. Non-entitlement units, those under 50,000 in population, received their distribution from the state. The amount allocated to each local government is based on a specific formula largely based on population.
According to United States Treasury guidance, examples of uses for these funds include, but are not limited to, supporting the public health response to COVID-19, addressing negative economic impacts of COVID-19, improving water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure, paying premiums for essential workers, and replacing public sector revenue losses.
Each non-entitlement community will make their own decisions in line with the Treasury guidance about how to spend these ARPA dollars. They have until 2024 to obligate the funds and until 2026 to spend the funds.
These same local governments will receive a second payment, equal to the payment being announced today in 2022, bringing the total funding made available to over $411 million.