The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted unanimously to transfer all remaining funds from the American Rescue Plan Act or “ARPA” to New Canaan’s General Fund.
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll during their regular meeting voted 3-0 to return the $747,634 to the fund so that the town can spend however it wants, rather than along ARPA-specific guidelines.
Murphy Carroll, who served on a joint Board of Finance and Town Council subcommittee that made recommendations about ARPA allocations, said the federal dollars can be used to reimburse communities that lost revenue due to the pandemic.
“We did lose approximately $3 million in revenue, and I was always a fan personally of pulling it in, because once you pull it into the town, you can use it for whatever purpose,” she said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference “If you allocate it directly this way, you have to really align with ARPA requirements. So I think it makes all the sense in the world for us to pull this in and then just allocate it out of our General Fund. Many communities pulled all their money in and replaced it, and it gave them flexibility.”
Former Selectman Nick Williams had pushed repeatedly during the early months of ARPA allocations to cover New Canaan’s lost revenue before anything else.
New Canaan received about $6 million in federal ARPA funds and spent $5.2 million on a wide range of projects, organizations and causes, including the Waveny Park Conservancy, backup generator, outdoor bathrooms at Waveny, sidewalks, premium pay for municipal and district workers, Waveny LifeCare Network’s telemedicine, Playhouse renovation, combined heat and power at the New Canaan Y for emergency shelter purposes, Town Players of New Canaan’s planned renovation of the Powerhouse Theatre and a failed marketing campaign operated by Noble House Media of Darien. Dubbed “Live New Canaan,” the town inherited the campaign from the New Canaan Board of Realtors, whose representatives provided demonstrably false information to the town’s funding bodies during the allocation process. The marketing campaign received vocal support from Town Council members Cristina A. Ross and Rita Bettino, as well as Administrative Officer Tucker Murphy.
Some ARPA fund requests were not met, such as St. Aloysius Church’s bid for $150,000 for a preschool (despite support from the former first selectman) and $100,000 for a private group’s ice rink in a public park.
The allocation process made headlines as the town’s funding bodies considered requests. One of the more modest requests, for $15,000 from the local VFW Post 653, was met with opposition from Boards of Selectmen and Finance after the former first selectman misread the Internal Revenue Service code—a mistake that the Town Council prompted the selectmen to remedy.
Town CFO Anne Kelly-Lenz said during this week’s meeting that she’d put the ARPA funds in a money market and is now seeking a determination from the state as to “what we can do to earn interest.”
“I just want to see because if it’s $50,000 or whatever it is, can we just take it back in or do we have to spend it on something else?” Kelly-Lenz said.
Murphy Carroll said, “Oh it’ll stay with us.”
Carlson said, “I’m a little worried, actually.”
Kelly-Lenz said she was seeking the state’s determination “to make sure we’re covered.”
Officials said at the meeting that the transfer to the General Fund would be sent to the Board of Finance for its approval.
Bravo to our new Board of Selectmen.
It’s about time.