ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Allentown officials beat a year-end deadline to allocate the rest of its eight-figure coronavirus pandemic-relief grant.
The city’s budget for the new year shows it still has a little more than 2% of the $57.1 million it got from the $1.9 trillion federal American Rescue Plan Act.
Allentown got split payments of $28.56 million in June 2021 and June 2022.
That money came with a directive to allocate all money by the end of 2024 or return any unused funds to the federal government.
City officials earmarked $20.5 million for infrastructure upgrades and maintenance. That includes $9 million for a project to expand the Allentown Police Department’s headquarters next to City Hall.
Allentown is set to use $18.5 million of its ARPA grant to replace revenue lost amid the COVID-19 pandemic, $16 million to cover “negative economic impacts” and $2 million to support public health initiatives.
Allentown still had about $1.3 million in unallocated ARPA money weeks before the Dec. 31 deadline, but city council as part of the budget process passed a measure that will see that money go toward personnel expenses.
About $800,000 will cover wages and salaries for a dozen city employees, while $336,000 will pay for employee insurance and $126,000 will be contributed toward pensions, according to the city’s ARPA Fund budget.
Council’s Dec. 18 approval of the 2025 budget ensures the city will not have to forfeit any of its ARPA grant.
ARPA drama
The body faced criticism last summer after potentially risking millions of federal grant dollars.
Members in August postponed awarding a $1.15 million contract related to a new police station, a move that could’ve forced the city to send back up to $9 million.
J.B. Reilly, Allentown’s most prominent developer, wrote a letter in which he warned a forfeiture of federal money “could have a devastating effect on the city and its citizens for years to come.”
He also said his company, City Center, could limit future investment in Allentown if council did not approve the contract.
Members signed off on that contract two weeks later.
ARPA allocations
Sixteen nonprofits split $1.2 million of Allentown’s ARPA money after city officials established a Community Reinvestment Fund last year.
Council in May approved a measure that put an equal amount into the city’s budget to supplement lost revenues during the pandemic, one of several qualifying expenses for ARPA money.
Mayor Matt Tuerk’s administration then put $1.2 million into the Community Reinvestment Fund for nonprofits.
Those transfers satisfied strict restrictions on how municipalities can spend ARPA funding.
Officials got four dozen applications totaling $3.4 million grants from the fund.
The city in 2023 diverted $1 million of its ARPA to Ripple Community Inc.’s project to convert a church into housing. But a bill passed last year changed the source of that funding, freeing up the ARPA money for other uses.
Cortex Residential got $2 million from Allentown’s ARPA to help fill a funding gap in its project to build an apartment complex with dozens of affordable units at the northwest corner of Walnut and South Eighth streets.
Allentown City Council considered giving the Lehigh Valley IronPigs $1.5 million in ARPA money but eventually voted not to give the minor league baseball team a single penny to help it make improvements to Coca-Cola Park in a bid to stay in the city.
