In the four years since its passage, the impact of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) on America’s local communities cannot be overstated. ARPA’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF) provided integral relief for local governments to ensure stability for their communities and residents throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. The SLFRF program provided many opportunities for regional and multi-jurisdictional collaborations while giving local governments autonomy to tailor expenditures to their own community’s top priorities, especially through the Treasury’s revenue replacement process.
Now that the December 2024 obligation deadline has passed, municipalities have until December 2026 to spend the dollars. Localities can use NLC resources to prepare for their upcoming reporting deadlines. As municipalities continue to spend their funds, they can look to their peers for examples of how to execute their contracts and report spending.
This blog highlights two peer communities that are in the process of spending their funds to support delivery of critical services for their residents. For more peer spending examples, local governments can use the Local Government ARPA Investment Tracker.
To read more about municipal SLFRF expenditures, see our blog How Two Cities Used ARPA Funds to Support Critical Local Services.
Community Spotlight – Virginia Beach, VA
Virginia Beach, home to over 450,000 residents, received an allocation of more than $136 million through the SLFRF program as a consolidated city-county government.
The city’s local leaders treated the funds like a micro-budget process where they engaged the mayor, city council and community members to ensure stakeholder feedback when establishing the spending plan.
Throughout the planning process, the city considered pre-existing needs that the COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated to focus their efforts. This approach allowed the city to begin permitting and contracting relatively quickly while focusing the funds in key areas, like broadband, stormwater and maintenance backlogs, and specific neighborhoods that needed the most support. The city also worked with nonprofit organizations to create additional points of contact with the community. When obligating the funds, the city found opportunities to work with neighboring communities, especially in regional broadband development, to limit competition for local materials and supplies.
Community Spotlight – Nampa, ID
Nampa, a city with a population just under 120,000 and a suburb of nearby Boise, was allocated more than $17.5 million under SLFRF. By the December 2024 obligation deadline, the city had obligated all of its funds with a large portion of those dollars already spent. Like many localities, Nampa devoted a significant portion of its funds — $10,000,000, or 57.1% — to revenue replacement to cover employee wages, sick pay and other COVID-related costs. However, when allocating the remainder of funding, Mayor Deborah Kling indicated that capital needs played an important role.
Infrastructure updates were a particularly key priority for the fast-growing city: the city devoted all of its remaining $7.5 million to water projects such as the new Nampa water tower and water line replacement. These projects worked well for Nampa given the SLFRF deadlines, as the timeline gave the city sufficient time for design and execution.
“The ARPA funds were a huge help to our community and our aging water infrastructure. Budgets are tight. Having access to funds to help replace aging water infrastructure allowed us to move forward with other needed projects. Federal funds are a huge help to our community and were much appreciated.”
– Nampa, ID Mayor Deborah Kling
Now that all funds are under contract, city leaders are focused on spending their outstanding funding to accomplish their remaining project objectives.
Additional Support
ARPA’s landmark legislation envisioned a role for all of America’s elected officials — at the federal, state and local levels — in the nation’s continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. As this next stage of the program continues, localities can look to Treasury’s guidance for reporting and compliance.
Local Government ARPA Investment Tracker
Continue to explore how localities have invested their funds.
National League of Cities Resource Library
Continue to check NLC’s Resource Library to see the incoming federal funding blogs.
National League of Cities ARPA Page
View blogs related to the ARPA’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund program.
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How Two Cities Used ARPA Funds to Support Critical Local Services
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