Henrico to receive $64.2M in American Rescue Plan funds

Henrico County will receive $64.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, the Biden administration announced Monday.

The money is part of $350 billion in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds approved as part of the ARPA. It is designed to help restore back jobs and address the pandemic’s economic fallout.

Funding is being allocated proportionate to each locality's population. For example, as the the sixth-largest locality in Virginia, Henrico is receiving the sixth-largest sum of funding.

Eligible state, territorial, metropolitan city, county, and tribal governments will be able to access funding directly from the U.S. Treasury Department in the coming days, officials from the department said Monday.

“Today is a milestone in our country’s recovery from the pandemic and its adjacent economic crisis. With this funding, communities hit hard by COVID-19 will able to return to a semblance of normalcy; they’ll be able to rehire teachers, firefighters and other essential workers – and to help small businesses reopen safely,” said Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen.  “There are no benefits to enduring two historic economic crises in a 13-year span, except for one: We can improve our policymaking. During the Great Recession, when cities and states were facing similar revenue shortfalls, the federal government didn’t provide enough aid to close the gap. That was an error. Insufficient relief meant that cities had to slash spending, and that austerity undermined the broader recovery. With today’s announcement, we are charting a very different – and much faster – course back to prosperity.”

The local recovery funds are designed to help provide localities with significant flexibility for each jurisdiction to meet local needs — including support for households, small businesses, impacted industries, essential workers, and the communities hardest-hit by the crisis. Within the categories of eligible uses listed, recipients have broad flexibility to decide how best to use this funding to meet the needs of their communities, according to Treasury officials.

In addition to allowing for flexible spending up to the level of their revenue loss, recipients can use funds to:

• support public health expenditures, by – among other uses – funding COVID-19 mitigation efforts, medical expenses, behavioral healthcare, mental health and substance misuse treatment and certain public health and safety personnel responding to the crisis;

• address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, including by rehiring public sector workers, providing aid to households facing food, housing or other financial insecurity, offering small business assistance, and extending support for industries hardest hit by the crisis;

• aid the communities and populations hardest hit by the crisis, supporting an equitable recovery by addressing not only the immediate harms of the pandemic, but its exacerbation of longstanding public health, economic and educational disparities;

• provide premium pay for essential workers, offering additional support to those who have borne and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service during the pandemic; and,

• invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure, improving access to clean drinking water, supporting vital wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, and expanding access to broadband internet.