The Town of Saugerties will redirect $407,576 in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to ensure they are both assigned and spent before the program’s final series of deadlines.
At a Town Board meeting held on Wednesday, December 11, Supervisor Fred Costello said that the remainder of the $1.7 million Saugerties received in the 2021 COVID-19 pandemic relief program would be reassigned to make sure the town didn’t miss out.
“There were some projects that we were concerned enough that we would not be able to complete before the end of the year when this funding had to be pledged,” Costello said. “And then there were other monies that were just allocated and we didn’t consume all of them.”
Costello cited a project to extend water and sewer lines as part of the Kings Highway Water District among the latter. ARPA funding for that project was initially earmarked at $350,000, but was reduced to $200,000 after partially tapping into money available through the state Dormitory Authority after learning the state’s 2023 budget included financing for the project arranged by former Assemblyman Kevin Cahill prior to his leaving office at the end of 2022.
Costello said the money would instead be directed toward projects like moving town communication facilities from a tower on Hommelville Road, space Saugerties rents, to the new Ulster County Emergency Communication Tower on Quarry Road. Other projects receiving a boost are wire upgrades, including a computer hardware pack and call recorder, at the Saugerties Police Station; as well as various parks department expenditures, including an office addition, drainage of the soccer fields and costs associated with pickleball courts and the town dog park.
“These are expenditures that we’ve already made,” Costello said. “They were all ARPA-qualified. And the expenditures that we are not going to reach will have discussions about how to do those without the support of ARPA funding.”
Costello said Saugerties Police Department chief Ken Swart and Parks, Recreation and Buildings supervisor Greg Chorvas were instrumental in identifying areas where the remaining ARPA funds could be used.
“This happened rather quickly,” Costello said. “We knew we had to allocate the money before the end of the year, but it wasn’t as clear that we actually had to show that we were going to spend this money before the end of the first quarter of 2025. On short notice, they were able to help us find projects that were qualifying and appropriate for this particular use. And this will ensure that we were able to use the revenues to $1.7 million.”
Costello said the projects that would be impacted would be identified after the town received approval from its accountant about the switch. None of them would have been completed by the end of the first quarter of 2025, and would therefore have lost the ARPA component.
“We’re going to back away from those projects and reassign funds to projects that will be completed in time, Costello said, adding that the $1.7 million in ARPA funding “was a rare, unexpected thing to happen as a result of COVID.”
As in other communities who’ve been successful with the program, it enabled Saugerties to recover more quickly from an economy shaken by the global pandemic, which effectively shut down the world in March 2020.
“(ARPA) allowed us to do some pretty extraordinary things that we otherwise would not be able to, including pickleball and dog park, and improvements to expanding water and sewer, roofs at the water and sewer facilities in Malden and Glasco, (and) some equipment that we were deferring because we didn’t have the resources to replace at the time,” Costello said. “And this was a welcome opportunity to make some needed infrastructure improvements and not burden the local taxpayers with those expenditures.”
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