Coconino County reports full expenditure of $27.8 million ARPA funds; board hears outcomes for housing, behavioral health, workforce and county projects

County finance and department staff told the Board of Supervisors on May 27 that the county met the ARPA State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF) deadline and fully expended $27,800,000 by Dec. 31, 2024.

The county presented a two-part accounting: direct county projects and a community grant program. Finance director and presenters said the county used the multi-year federal funding to finance behavioral health programs, housing repairs and infrastructure, small-business supports, workforce training and supports for vulnerable populations. Staff emphasized extensive federal compliance and single-audit work performed while managing large grant flows.

Nut graf: County leaders said the goal was to get dollars into places that advanced pandemic recovery priorities; the finance office reported that remaining allowable obligations were reallocated so the county met the federal expenditure deadline.

Major highlights shown to the board included: behavioral-health investments (mobile mental-health response units and a new recovery and resiliency division inside Health and Human Services), housing dollars that funded a sewer extension project in Fredonia and a $300,000 award to Red Feather Development Group for health-and-safety home repairs and energy-efficiency projects, workforce projects such as a mobile training unit purchased by Coconino Community College, and business supports including funding for Creative Flagstaff and small-business advising programs. The county reported that community grant awardees across the priority areas reported service locations throughout the county — from Fredonia and Marble Canyon to Williams and Grand Canyon — and that 92% of the community grant fund balance had been expended when staff paused to reallocate remaining allowable dollars.

Departments also summarized county-side ARPA projects: public-health surge staffing and testing services during the pandemic, upgrades to senior meal program kitchens (Meals on Wheels contracts and upgraded refrigerators), expanded contact tracing/epidemiology capacity, software purchases to modernize county services, and support for higher-capacity court operations to reduce backlogs.

Ending: Finance staff provided the board with a bound outcomes report containing program-level metrics and photos, and encouraged supervisors to use copies when answering constituent questions. Supervisors thanked staff and nonprofit partners and said they would continue to track how programs transition away from ARPA into ongoing operations.