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North Miami Beach approves $500,000 general‑fund patch after ARPA deadline lapses
Summary
City commission voted to use $500,000 from the city general fund to finish a home‑rehabilitation program that had relied on American Rescue Plan Act funding now past a federal obligation deadline. City staff said a missed ARPA obligation deadline and reporting gaps left projects that residents had approved but not fully obligated.
The North Miami Beach City Commission voted to amend the city budget and use $500,000 in general‑fund reserves to complete a home rehabilitation program after federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) deadlines left some previously approved projects ineligible for ARPA reimbursement.
City finance staff and the city’s ARPA consultant told the commission the city received $21.5 million in ARPA allocations and had spent about $17 million, with roughly $3 million encumbered and about $900,000 still unspent. But the federal obligation deadline — the date by which contracts and purchase orders must have been in place — was Dec. 31, 2024. Staff said work on several locally approved projects continued after that date, which prevented those projects from being covered by ARPA even though they were budgeted and discussed at earlier meetings.
“The federal government gave the cities assurances that allocation will be received,” Tariq Romani, the city’s chief financial officer, told the commission in a presentation. He added that the Treasury’s deadlines require cities to have obligations in place by the end of 2024 or risk losing eligibility for specific projects.
Commissioners pressed staff for detail on the scale and causes of the shortfall. Romani and staff said the shortfall came from a mix of factors, including accounting and project‑assignment gaps, incomplete contract rollouts and timing problems in procurement and program management. A consultant who reviewed the city’s ARPA accounting and reporting flagged items where expenditures were not attached to coded ARPA projects, and staff said a deeper reconciliation was needed to fully map each expense to a project.
Commissioner Phyllis Smith, whose office had advocated moving the home‑rehab item into discussion and then legislation, said residents were already in the pipeline for repairs and that she did not want to delay work into the next month. Other commissioners said they supported completing the work for residents but wanted fuller documentation before committing general‑fund dollars for future ARPA gaps.
After discussion the commission approved the budget amendment transferring $500,000 from the general fund to finish the home‑rehabilitation projects. The roll‑call vote recorded five yes votes and two no votes. Vice Mayor Jay Chernoff and Commissioner Fortuna Smuckler voted no.
City staff said the $500,000 allocation is intended to finish the 12 properties that have not yet started work; staff reported that 48 projects tied to the program have been completed and 12 remain in the pipeline. The remaining properties have passed preliminary inspection, required clearances such as lead inspections and state historic preservation reviews, and in many cases have scopes of work ready — staff said the work can move quickly once funding is in place.
Staff said they will continue reconciling ARPA accounting and report back to the commission with detailed findings about why individual projects lost ARPA eligibility, and with recommendations to prevent similar problems in future grant management.
Commission action: the commission approved Resolution R2025‑83 (budget amendment to fund the home rehabilitation program). The motion carried 5–2.
