How Will Evanston Spend Its $43 Million In Federal ARPA Funding?

EVANSTON, IL — City staff outlined the process for how to divide up Evanston's $43 million share of federal COVID-19 relief funding provided by the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA.

City Manager Erika Storlie said staff were monitoring whether Congress will allocate additional money for infrastructure in forthcoming legislation. And city staff are working closely with local nonprofit groups to connect them with funding from the $1.9 trillion bill beyond what has been earmarked for municipalities, Storlie told alderpeople at Monday's City Council meeting.

"We definitely don't want to duplicate any funding sources," Storlie said. "We want to maximize this funding to the greatest extent and invest it — not spend it."

$22 million — about half the ARPA money — would be set aside for city finances, infrastructure and miscellaneous other uses. Some of this category could be used to offset the estimated $28 million in revenue losses for the general and parking funds combined in 2020 and 2021.

Staff priorities for this pot of money include using $3 million of it for water projects and nearly $1 million for parking capital projects, both of which could stave off fee increases, $300,000 to continue a guaranteed income pilot program begun with funding from Northwestern University, and $100,000 to create an implementation plan for the city's climate action plan.

$6 million would be used to focus on communities disadvantaged before and by the pandemic to encourage a more inclusive and equitable recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. This would include both neighborhoods with the lowest incomes and worst health outcomes, as well as services available across the city.

"The concept generally is that if you're utilizing the money to target an area that has been harder-hit than others, then there's going to be additional funds that are going to be available to leverage the funds that you invest," Storlie said. "How you define that is categories by a number of things, not just census tract. There may be a social service need that is identified that is not related to a census tract that would qualify under 'inclusive and equitable recovery.'"

$5.5 million would be earmarked for economic development. The money could be used for job creation, workforce development and business infrastructure. Staff recommended a process where anyone can propose projects, which would then be reviewed to make sure they meet ARPA guidelines.

$4.17 million would be held in reserve for a year in case of a resurgence of COVID-19 or unmet needs of the city.

$3 million of the city's ARPA funds would be earmarked for social services, which include mental health, child care, housing, food insecurity and other needs. The money would go through a similar staff review and scoring process as the economic development money, only it would head to the City Council on a via the Social Services Committee rather than the Economic Development Committee.

$2.5 million of the federal money would be set aside for a participatory budgeting process. Staff propose contracting with an outside firm to run a process that allows for residents to have a direct say in the allocation of the money. Storlie said this could potentially include proposals that were not approved through the committee processes, so it would be best to wait until the other money has been allocated first.

The presentation of the proposed ARPA funding allocation and process followed three town hall meetings — one in person, one remote, and one in Spanish — to solicit community feedback.

The funding categories and allocations are still in draft form, and several aldermen suggested shifting more money into social services and continuing to engage the community before spending a significant amount of the money.

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Mayor Daniel Biss said the city had a continuing responsibility to solicit input from residents beyond town hall meetings and roundtables.

"I think we'll be making a mistake if we don't act intentionally about engaging the public in that process as well, and so I want to make sure that we do that," Biss said.

"I don't think that we need to do that before a single dime goes out the door, but I do think we need to do that before we've finalized out comprehensive plan for all of this," he continued. "Because I think that the public has an expectation that not only will they throw a bunch of ideas at us, but they'll be at the table when we start to sort through those ideas and enumerate priorities."

Biss said the city should not rely solely on people coming forward with economic development proposals to determine how best to spend the money.

"We have an economic development manager and we, as a city, work on economic development issues all the time, we ought to have the capacity to establish our own strategy that should guide the expenditure of perhaps a small portion, perhaps a medium portion, perhaps even all of these funds," he said. "But that should not require us to wait for applicants to come to us. And I think we're passing up a really, really unique opportunity and making a mistake if we allocate all of the economic development dollars in that fashion."

The mayor said he would continue to push for an internal strategy to guide how to proactively spend ARPA money for economic development.

"If we do that, we've got a real opportunity here that doesn't come around very often," Biss said. "If we don't, I think we're failing to meet that moment."

Watch full July 26 Evanston City Council discussion of ARPA funding priorities »