Town board approves purchase of road salt, aid to food pantry with ARP funds

The Lansing Town Board summoned an emergency meeting last Wednesday (May 31) to figure out how to spend close to $200,000 in unallocated American Rescue Plan funds. 

The town decided to spend its remaining funds on the purchase of $191,957 worth of salt for the town’s roads and provide $10,000 to the to Lansing Food Pantry on East Shore Drive to “offset low inventories and increased demand,” according to a resolution read by Lansing’s attorney, Guy Krogh. 

The federal government allocated $407,974.13 to the town as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act. These funds were disbursed to municipalities across the county to inject direct relief to local economies and to act as a foundation that would spur economic growth and address aging infrastructure. The advice from Krogh at the time, he noted Wednesday, was to quickly allocate the money to projects that were of interest to the town board and the public at large. The funds have an expiration date of 2024, based on the initial federal guidelines released in 2021.

The town board convened the special meeting Wednesday due to concerns regarding recent federal debt ceiling negotiations in the U.S. Congress that could have great implications for municipalities hanging on to ARP funds. A report from National Public Radio (NPR) last week indicates that the deal reached between Republican leadership in Washington and President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling, which among other things included work requirements for people to qualify for some public assistance programs, called for the federal government to seize unused ARP funds. 

NPR estimates that all in all, the federal government will see about $27 billion in pandemic relief funds return to its coffers. The debt ceiling is the legislative limit on the amount of national debt that can be incurred by the U.S. Treasury, limiting how much money the federal government may pay by borrowing more money, on the debt it has already borrowed.

At the Wednesday meeting, town officials pondered how to earmark the money before it’s potentially gone. 

“You can use it for community support to offset losses or cover the needs of nonprofits and for-profit entities,” Krogh said. “ARP was designed to deal with another pandemic lockdown. It was really geared toward enhancing life, health and safety in the event of another emergency, whether it was health related, war or natural disaster. It does favor things like infrastructure development like water and sewer, things that would enhance safety quality of life when other services suddenly dry up.”

Town Supervisor Ed Lavigne, a Republican, asked about the feasibility of directing remaining ARP funds toward organizations that have direct impacts on the community.

“My understanding is that the food pantries have been hit pretty hard because of this pandemic and the aftershocks,” he said. Krogh noted some municipalities in Tompkins County had used their funds to replenish local food pantries.

LaVigne then proposed giving $10,000 in aid to the Lansing Food Pantry.

Before moving forward with that plan, Town Board members Bronwyn Losey and Joseph Wetmore, both Democrats, asked if some of the funding could go toward other organizations that were also helping residents.

“Are there other ones that are doing critical work that needs to be happening that maybe we want to distribute some money to?” Losey asked.

Wetmore said he would like for the town to hear other requests as well.

“I feel a little uncomfortable having one group come forward at the last minute without us opening it up to the whole community, saying, “If we have $20,000 or $40,000, how would you spend that?’” Wetmore said.
LaVigne noted that the surplus provided by the influx of ARP funds into the budget line item that contains salt for roads could eventually be used to help other organizations.

Board members agreed to revisit the conversation in July or August, noting that they could come up with some guidelines to direct local businesses and nonprofits to apply for some form of an ARP grant from the town. 

Lansing at Large appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com. Contact Eddie Velazquez at edvel37@gmail.com or on Twitter @ezvelazquez.

In brief:

Lansing Central School District budget vote results

Lansing Central School District’s (LCSD) $36.6 million budget for the 2023-24 school year was approved by voters on May 16, with 61.3% of the vote in favor. Voters also approved the transportation vehicles proposition, which would beef up the LCSD’s transportation fleet, with 67.2% of the vote in favor. Candidates Katherine Cole, John Stevens and Matt Bogumil will serve on the LCSD Board of Education for at least the next three years.