- Bethlehem awarded $750,000 in grants to 31 organizations Monday with money from the American Rescue Plan
- Mayor J. William Reynolds said he hopes to keep the grant program going after the federal funding dries up
- The city was able to bolster its finances and is on track to lower its debt by $100 million over the next decade, Reynolds said
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Mayor J. William Reynolds foreshadowed his 2024 budget Monday when he announced his intention to continue supporting community grants after COVID-19 relief funding dries up in the years ahead.
During a presentation at Northeast Middle School to about 150 people, Reynolds unveiled $750,000 in grants to 31 local organizations out of the city's American Rescue Plan money.
The city still has about $2.25 million for future grants, but Reynolds said he hopes to keep the program going indefinitely.
"We are trying to help people. And we are trying to understand what the inequities are in society and how we can invest in them as a community."Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds
"We are trying to help people," Reynolds said. "And we are trying to understand what the inequities are in society and how we can invest in them as a community."
The American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package Democrats passed in 2021, was intended to kickstart the economy as the pandemic dragged into its second year.
Lehigh Valley governments and school districts got more than $539 million in funding; Bethlehem received a little more than $34 million of that, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said.
Cleaning up city finances
The act, Reynolds said, has let the city soup up its finances. It has the best bond rating and the lowest earned income tax rate of any city in Pennsylvania, he said.
The additional funding allowed it to avoid millions of dollars in interest by avoiding borrowing for capital improvement projects, he said.
"We'll have paid off about $100 million in 10 years, going from about $170 million in debt to $70 million in debt," Reynolds said. "No other city can compare to that."
That will let the city instead invest in programs that will strengthen the city's social safety net by investing in programs for more child care, education, mental health and arts and culture, among other projects.
Monday's grant recipients included:
- Bethlehem Public Library, which will add social workers to its staff and offer mental health programming
- The Boys and Girls Club, which will hire additional staff to create programming for teenagers
- Greater Valley YMCA, which will open new child care centers in Bethlehem
- The Hispanic Center of the Lehigh Valley, which will upgrade its senior center kitchen
- The Monacacy Farm Project, which makes fresh produce available for distribution through local food pantries and other partners
- Touchstone Theater's Festival UnBound, which provides five days of free public art
Finding support for funding
Reynolds said it's unclear whether the city will be able to commit $750,000 to local organizations after the American Rescue Plan funding is exhausted, but said he hoped the city will be able to step up to some degree.
Bonding for that money would potentially be on the table, he said.
However it's funded, Reynolds said, he envisions future grants going toward causes such as climate justice, job training, education and economic development.
"These investments — not all of them, but a lot of them — should not be once in every hundred-year or fifty-year investments. We should reinstitute that more generous version to keep that level of child poverty down."U.S. Sen. Bob Casey
It remains to be seen whether Reynolds will be able to find support on the city council to support the community grants. But it seems unlikely that funding from the federal level would materialize any time soon, U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-Lehigh Valley, said.
In 2019, Democrats narrowly passed the American Rescue Plan Act into law. No Republicans in either chamber backed the spending package, and Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote to get it through the Senate at one point.
Now, the U.S. House is locked in a historic level of dysfunction, and it's an open question whether this Congress will be able to accomplish much of anything.
"We don't even have a Speaker of the House," Wild said.
Casey was more optimistic, saying he believed Congress might be able to rally around some bipartisan goals.
Both parties want to boost funding for scientific research and development, he said, and the enhanced tax credit funded through the American Rescue Plan was popular on both sides of the aisle.
While a new child tax credit may not be as generous as the American Rescue Plan's, he believed lawmakers recognized more financial support for working families makes America stronger.
"These investments — not all of them, but a lot of them — should not be once in every hundred-year or fifty-year investments," Casey said.
"We should reinstitute that more generous version to keep that level of child poverty down."
