CLARKSBURG, W.Va. – Clarksburg City Council met Thursday evening to discuss capitalizing the American Rescue Plan Act funds to match state or private funding opportunities.
During the discussion on the funds, the city manager gave council members a list of things they have discussed utilizing their dollars on. That list includes items like sidewalks, a façade grant, portable radios for fire and police, an urban redevelopment authorities business loan, the purchase of an end loader and an excavator for public works and funding for the Clarksburg Water Board, as well as sewer projects. The city has already received $3.3 million of the $6.2 million in funding.
“We are working very hard and diligently as a group to come together and find ways that we can spend this money, leverage some of it towards grants, so we have more to spend on other projects. We are working very diligently to spend the taxpayers’ dollars wisely,” said Harry Faulk, Clarksburg city manager.
After funding is spent from the $3.3 million on lost revenue, the proposal given by the city manager shows that $2.9 million would be left from the funds to work on other projects within the city.
“From our understanding with our talks with officials, the money that goes into the general fund for revenue loss has to go towards municipal services, services that we already provide, and we will have to show in our reports where we spent that. We are not allowed to spend it, or not allowed to transfer it into our rainy-day fund,” Faulk said.
City officials encouraged the public to attend the council’s work sessions and to speak up and talk to council members and city officials about how they would like to see the American Rescue Plan Act funds spent.