Coconino County says $27.8 million in ARPA funds fully spent; report lists broadband, housing, behavioral health and senior services outcomes

Coconino County finance officials told the Board of Supervisors on May 27 that the county has expended the $27.8 million it received under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) state and local fiscal recovery fund program and has submitted the required reporting covering obligations and expenditures through the federal deadlines.

The finance presentation summarized two streams of spending: community grant awards made after a competitive request-for-proposals process and county department projects. The board had established priority areas for community grants—behavioral health, housing, business supports, workforce and education, services for vulnerable populations, and COVID-related government supports—and staff reported final allocations and accomplishments in each category.

Finance staff said community grants funded nonprofits that provided mobile mental-health response, home-repair and sewer-extension work in Fredonia, small-business supports and training for Spanish-speaking microentrepreneurs, workforce training through Coconino Community College, and resumed congregate-meal services for seniors in Williams and Flagstaff. Department projects used ARPA funds to expand public-health contact tracing and testing capacity, acquire a mobile training unit for the community college, upgrade courtroom audio/video and remote-hearing capacity, and add county staff in probation, courts and the public defender’s office to reduce COVID-era backlogs.

The presentation included a bound outcomes report that staff said contains service locations and metrics for each grantee, photo documentation and program reports. Staff noted that grant recipients reported services reaching beyond Flagstaff into Page, Williams, Fredonia, Tuba City and other communities in Coconino County. Finance emphasized the high level of compliance work required by the U.S. Treasury, including extensive quarterly reporting, single-audit requirements for the ARPA program years and the likelihood of a federal Treasury audit of the county’s use of funds.

The board and department directors highlighted that ARPA dollars allowed the county to pilot and scale behavioral-health services (including a new Recovery & Resiliency division), support a large set of community nonprofits, restore senior congregate-meal sites and purchase equipment and programs intended to continue beyond ARPA. Supervisors and staff also noted the administrative work required to manage such a large federal grant program and thanked county grant-management teams and nonprofit partners for the work.

Officials said the county will continue to track outcomes and prepare for required future audits. The board did not take an additional vote on the report; the presentation served as a wrap-up and public accounting of the ARPA allocations the board previously approved.