The Bastrop City Council on a special-call meeting approved splitting $222,000 of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds evenly among the council districts, after staff said tighter federal guidance and local procurement rules left only that amount immediately flexible.

City staff said the larger ARPA pool — which council members had expected to obligate at roughly $1.8 million — cannot be spent as originally envisioned in part because projects over $250,000 would trigger state bid laws and because new Treasury guidance limits use of payroll as an eligible ARPA expense. "We don't have time to do the bids on what you most wanted to see done," a staff presenter said. "Absent a $250,000 project, it's not going to work right now." The staff presenter recommended substituting already-paid general-fund invoices for ARPA-eligible expenses where possible to free money, but said the work requires invoice review and time.

The spending plan the council reviewed included items already drawn from the October budget list: patrol vehicles, public‑works trucks, fire department equipment, and a city‑hall water‑damage repair contract; staff also presented quotes for website/marketing work and for broader IT maintenance and cybersecurity. Those items, staff said, consumed most of the original ARPA allocation and left approximately $222,000 available to reassign.

Council members and residents pressed staff and the city attorney about transparency, the apparent prior placement of ARPA funds into the general fund, and whether the council's ordinance requiring council approval for expenditures over $5,000 limited the mayor's ability to spend the money. "We had the $2.2 then 1.8; the problem is when you trust administration to be open and transparent, you listen and you take a person's word," a council member said during discussion, adding that districts and constituents needed a clearer role in the list of proposed projects.

City Attorney Devin Jones told the council that some items are legally condemned or already in the hands of administration and public works for next steps. On the legal and procurement questions, Jones and other staff described a gap: ARPA monies had been placed in the general fund in prior accounting, which complicated visibility and the council's ability to immediately reallocate large projects without following bid and state procurement rules.

Councilman Bradford moved to split the flexible balance evenly among the council districts; a second was recorded. After discussion the motion was carried by voice vote (roll-call tally not specified in the record), allocating roughly $45,000–$55,000 per district depending on final rounding and later adjustments. Council and staff agreed to return with a budget amendment and a clearer conversion plan that would (a) identify current-year general‑fund invoices that can be swapped to ARPA to free more ARPA eligibility and (b) strengthen purchasing procedures to prevent similar transparency and compliance issues in future allotments.

The vote did not finalize spending on any specific project. Staff recommended council authorize a budget amendment and directed staff to bring back a cleaned spending plan and the invoices that could be substituted for ARPA-eligible expenses. The council also discussed but did not adopt additional new large items (for example, park turf or multi-hundred‑thousand-dollar capital projects) because of the bid-threshold and timing limitations.

The council said it would pursue procedural changes in the coming months — including clarified purchasing procedures and, if needed, attorney‑general guidance — so future ARPA or restricted funds are easier to track and allocate.

Ending: The council's split leaves a modest, immediately available pot for district-level projects while staff pursues invoice‑level substitutions and proposed ordinance/procurement revisions to enable larger ARPA obligations in later months. No new large capital project was approved at the meeting.