FAYETTEVILLE -- Washington County's justices of the peace Tuesday voted to use $1 million the county had earmarked in 2021 to support health care education to help pay for a new Emergency Operations Center instead.
County Judge Patrick Deakins in an email to the justices of the peace said federal money previously designated by the county for health education projects needed to be reallocated. He suggested two alternatives for the American Rescue Plan money.
"As part of the original ARPA appropriations some years ago, Washington County allocated $500,000 each to both Northwest Arkansas Community College and Northwest Technical Institute to expand their allied health and nursing school initiatives," Deakins said in the email.
"While well-intended, we fast forward to our current time and both of those projects have not materialized for one reason or another. This means that we will need take action on these funds prior to year-end to make sure they are utilized. The stipulations of ARPA require all funds to be dedicated by the end of calendar year 2024."
Deakins said the money could be reallocated to the Excellerate Foundation for an affordable housing project. That would supplement an earlier award made by Washington County.
The county allocated Excellerate $1.4 million to put into a low-income housing project, Deakins said in the email.
"That project is still well underway and that is part of the update you will hear next week. The project they are proposing is scalable. They have requested we roll the above-mentioned total of $1 million into that project, to scale it even more."
Deakins suggested the other alternative was to use the $1 million to pay for the county's Emergency Operations Center project, which is expected to cost about $8 million. The county has set aside about $6 million for the project.
Jeff Webster, president and CEO of the Excellerate Foundation, told the justices of the peace the two building projects that were the initial purpose of the funding are not going to happen within the time frame for using the federal funding.
"We can't make use of this money because neither one of these projects is going to happen," Webster said.
Webster told the justices of the peace the money could be shifted to an affordable housing project proposed for a location in Springdale' the Ford Avenue Flats. That project, if a $45 million funding threshold can be reached, would have 150 units of affordable housing spaces. That project is also contingent on the developer, Mercy Housing, filling a $5 million gap in funding.
Webster said a smaller, 24-unit affordable housing project also in Springdale, is "shovel ready" and could be done with available funding.
Sean Simons, justice of the peace for District 3, said he would love to see more affordable housing in Springdale, which is a part of his district, but he was unwilling to wait to see if the additional money would be available. Webster told the justices of the peace it would probably be August or September before all of the different entities involved made their final decisions.
"I'm not sure it's concrete enough for me to back that $1 million commitment," Simons said.
Kyle Lyons, justice of the peace for District 5, said the risk of losing the federal funds if the housing project failed to materialize was too great.
"That's why I think we should take the $1 million back and use it for a project that's already started," Lyons said.
Lyons made a motion to allocate the money to the Emergency Operations Center.
Beth Coger, justice of the peace for District 9, offered an amendment to Lyons' motion that would allocate the money to the Excellerate Foundation. Coger said affordable housing was one of the top priorities mentioned by members of the public at a series of town hall meetings she attended when the use of the federal money was first being discussed. Coger's amendment was rejected with only Coger and Justices of the Peace Suki Highers and Evelyn Rios Stafford supporting it.
The motion to allocate the money to the Emergency Operations Center was approved by a vote of 10-2 with Coger and Highers voting no.
Officials in Springdale were set to address a similar issue at Tuesday night's city council meeting. A pair of resolutions were added to the council's agenda Tuesday to reallocate the federal money to Northwest Arkansas Community College and Northwest Technical institute. The city designated $442,389.50 for the college and $442,289.50 for the institute, according to the resolutions prepared for the city council.
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