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Committee member says ARPA funds redirected from planned mental-health facility to infrastructure project
Summary
A committee member said Forsyth County redirected roughly $30 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds originally earmarked for a crisis stabilization mental-health unit to a water and sewer return-flow project, citing financing and noting the state's separate plans for a large facility.
A committee member said Forsyth County decided to use American Rescue Plan Act funds to pay for a water and sewer return-flow infrastructure project instead of funding a county-built crisis stabilization mental-health facility.
The committee member said the choice was an economic and financing decision, not a judgment about local need: “the decision was not made ... whether the need was there or not,” and the board instead chose to allocate about $30 million in ARPA dollars to the infrastructure project to avoid borrowing or bonding in the near term.
The speaker described the planned mental-health project as a full crisis stabilization unit that included some juvenile space and said the county had previously invested in co-responder programs run through the sheriff's office, grants, and internal employee supports, including app-based systems for first responders.
The committee member noted that the State of Georgia recently included a significant allocation in its budget—about $400 million—for a roughly 300–400-bed facility that the state will manage, and said that reality influenced the county's decision to prioritize the infrastructure investment.
By reallocating the ARPA funds to the return-flow project, the speaker said the county extended its ability to defer borrowing for four or five years and avoided issuing bonds immediately for the infrastructure work. The transcript did not record any formal motion or vote on this point.
The speaker emphasized the county's prior investments in crisis response and framed the action as a fiscal-management choice: funding an existing, shovel-ready infrastructure project rather than constructing a county-operated mental-health facility that the speaker said the state would likely operate.
No additional procedural steps or votes on the funding decision were recorded in the provided transcript; the comment period in the transcript focused on explaining the rationale rather than recording a formal board action.
