Where is the City of Austin spending its federal pandemic money?

AUSTIN (KXAN) — From childcare people can actually afford to shelter for people experiencing homelessness to being better prepared for Texas’ next major weather event, the City of Austin has used its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for 30 different projects.

ARPA funding was intended to help local and state governments handle the pandemic. Austin got $188 million.

According to an update from city financial staff before city council members Tuesday, the City of Austin has a little more than $30 million still to allocate.

“Those have not been encumbered yet, but the departments have plans to have all the funds encumbered by the deadline of December of this year,” Kerri Lang, budget officer for the City of Austin, said.

According to Lang, eight of the 30 projects the city used that money for are complete. That includes grants for artists and musicians, according to documents KXAN received through a Texas Public Information Act request. The remaining 22 of those projects are still in the works — some won’t be complete until the end of 2027, Lang said.

“The public health department has a communications project that is related to informing people when there is some health concerns, so there’s a large communication project that they have,” Lang said. She also said affordable childcare and food security projects are some of the longer-term items.

Austin City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes asked for more detailed updates on ARPA funding moving forward.

“Can we get an update as to how those projects have moved forward? I know that there’s been a couple revisions or tweaks or adjustments made to some of the projects, the initiatives that we had allocated for funding, there have been changes in how much we’ve funded them. But I would like some more detail on where those adjustments were made,” she said.

All of the money has to be allocated by the end of this year and fully spent by the end of 2026. The City of Austin is required to send its next ARPA report to the federal government at the end of this month.

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