Pima County Supervisors on Tuesday approved the re-allocation of $1.3 million in unused federal COVID-19 relief funds.
The $1.3 million is part of more than $200 million allocated to Pima County in the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, in March 2021. The federal relief package was meant to help municipalities with the financial impact COVID-19 had on public health and local economies.
Pima County had to find new purposes for the funds by the end of the year and “spend soon thereafter,” Jan Lesher, the county administrator, told supervisors Tuesday during the board meeting.
The spending period for the ARPA funds ends in December 2026, county staffers told supervisors.
The roughly $1.3 million in repurposed funding comes from six board-approved projects and re-allocated into six other projects.
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A little over $212,000 is coming out of JobPath because its contract ends Dec. 31; $701,451 is coming from the Northwest Services Center project because the county “realized cost savings,” and about $336,600 comes from a “Communicable Disease Testing” project, according to Lesher’s memo.
The largest amount of re-allocated funds is $382,000 for the parks and recreation department, which will allow for the replacement of a pool pump at Manzanita Pool. And nearly $238,000 has been re-allocated for the county-owned shelter property that will be used for maintenance, according to Lesher’s memo.
$128,000 will go towards a water pump system at Tucson Mountain Park “to electronically monitor water levels,” while nearly $380,000will be for the “Economic Recovery Communications and Marketing” project, Lesher says, but this is because that amount “was inadvertently tied to another fund” and is a correction.
Supervisors approved the funding changes 4-1, with Supervisor Steve Christy voting no.
