City Manager Rob Anderson said residents made it clear that they wanted to see ARPA funds directed toward nonprofits and small businesses during work sessions with city officials.
“We held a series of public workshops to get input from the public on the types of projects that they wanted to see,” Anderson said. “That was really the most pressing need our residents identified.”
Over $500,000 was committed to the program. Anderson said the rest of the city’s project list, too, was constructed with the community’s input in mind.
The city’s largest expenditures are allocations to small businesses and nonprofits, renovation to the Broad Street fire house ($2 million), stormwater drainage upgrades ($1.1 million through several projects), construction of Memorial Park ($500,000), economic development programs ($500,000), the Fairborn Phoenix restoration ($500,000) and the community parking lot resurfacing project ($470,000) — all projects that will progress through 2023.
Municipalities have until the end of 2024 to allocate ARPA funds and until the end of 2026 to fully spend them, per federal guidelines.
Editor’s Note: This story is part of a newspaper series tracking how dozens of our area’s largest governments are spending hundreds of millions of dollars combined from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Visit our “Billions in COVID aid: Where it’s going” special section on our partner newspaper’s website at daytondailynews.com/investigations/billions-in-covid-aid to see summaries from other communities.
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