City’s First $26.3M Covid-Aid Spending Plan Advances

Alders have fast-tracked approval of city plans to spend the first $26 million-plus in federal pandemic-era aid to bolster lost municipal revenue and build up a host of summer youth programs moved ahead.

During Thursday night’s online Board of Alders Finance Committee meeting, they advanced a proposed order that would allow the city to spend roughly $20 million in American Rescue Plan (AID) aid on ​“cost recovery” for parking meter, building permit, tax collection, and other municipal revenue lost due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

That order would also allow Mayor Justin Elicker’s administration to spend an additional $6.3 million in ARP aid over the next three months on a host of ​“summer reset” programs that would include summer concerts, citywide cleanup crews, playground repairs, extended summer camps, neighborhood popup festivals, police walking beats, and more.

The committee alders moved that proposal forward Thursday by taking no vote on the matter. That allows the full Board of Alders to discharge the item from committee and take it up for debate, potential amendments, and a final vote at the city legislature’s next meeting in early June (rather than wait for another meeting to vote). This type of accelerated review is common for time-sensitive legislative matters, which top City Hall officials said Thursday night is the case for this initial ARP spending plan.

Thursday’s hearing represented a key moment in the city’s early stages of recovery from the ongoing pandemic. 

After a year and a half of citywide disruption, suffering, isolation, unemployment, restrictions, sickness and death, life in New Haven is slowly moving back towards a bit of a pre-pandemic normal. And, thanks to the federal government’s $1.9 trillion Covid-era relief act, New Haven is about to receive a whole lot of money to help that return take place. This proposal concerns the first tranche of what will ultimately be a $90 million Covid-era avalanche coming New Haven’s way from Washington D.C.

At the same time, New Haven has seen a sharp uptick in street violence, with three murders and a host of non-fatal shootings taking place over the past week alone, underscoring the urgency for the city to take some kind of action to keep New Haveners — particularly young city residents — safe, healthy, and occupied.

“The American Rescue Plan is very much for the people of our country,” city Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli (pictured) said Thursday night. ​“It is much more than the amount of money that will come to New Haven. It is geared towards lifting a family, living people out of poverty, creating opportunities and access.”

This federal aid spending plan, he continued, which the city first announced in a press conference on April 20, can nevertheless play a significant role in stabilizing lives thrown off kilter during the pandemic.

“This is about so much more than just fiscal recovery,” Piscitelli said. ​“It’s about social and economic wellbeing.”

$6.3M Summer Reset Pitch: ​“It Takes A Village”

Much as they did during the late April press conference, various City Hall department heads spent much of Thursday night’s meeting detailing the nearly two dozen programs that the $6.3 million ​“summer reset” spending plan would fund.

City Youth and Recreation Department Director Gwendolyn Busch Williams (pictured) walked through how her departments plans to spend the $1.5 million allocated for youth-specific programs.

“It is always the premise of our department that it takes a village” to create a safe and healthy society, she said. With that in mind, this money would go towards:

• Expanding the city’s outdoor adventures / ranger program. ​“We use our parks in order to bring our communities and families together,” she said. This would allow the city to increase opportunities for kayaking, wall climbing, rope courses, camping trips, and other outdoor activities.

• Extending summer camps by an additional two weeks, so that they run through the third week of August.

• Setting up a ​“counselor in training” program to train and pay 13 and 14 year olds on everything from how to answer a phone in a workplace setting to conflict resolution with colleagues.

• Creating a new ​“grassroots grants” program to give money directly to local private youth service providers to support free summer programs in everything from sports to arts to poetry to chess.

• Creating a new ​“youth driver safety program” to provide free driving school instruction for 16 and 17 year olds interested in getting their licenses.

• Funding neighborhood pop up festivals. ​“The premise is a family reunion,” she said. ​“If we have healthy families, we can support healthy youth.” Those would take place every Wednesday this summer in different neighborhoods across the city.

• A youth summer concert series. ​“We are excited about actually bringing artists to our city that young people would enjoy.”

Alongside that pitch for more ARP-funded youth programs, city Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Rebecca Bombero, city Cultural Affairs Director Adriane Jefferson, and city Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal pitched the alders on a more than a dozen other planned public safety, city beautification, and local arts programs to be funded by this first tranche of ARP money.

That would include:

• $1.5 million for citywide cleaning crews, graffiti removal, additional police walking beats, public park fence and playground repairs, new trash cans, a citywide youth ambassador program, and new plantings and trees;

• $1 million for direct grants to city artists, placing teaching artists into summer camps and summer programs, ​“equitable marketing” efforts through billboards and social media and print flyers to advertise New Haven’s arts and culture scene, and bolstering local cultural institutions like the International Festival of Arts & Ideas;

• $2 million hiring more street outreach workers, giving out grants directly to local violence prevention organizations, and installing syringe disposal kiosks, among other efforts.

The remaining roughly $300,000 of that ​“summer reset” allocation would be spent on administrative costs associated with program management, service delivery, planning, and civic engagement around the ARP spending plan.

$20M For Cost & Revenue ​“Recovery”

In addition to spending $6.3 million on ​“summer reset” programs, Elicker Administration officials pitched alders on their plan to spend roughly $20 million of this initial ARP aid on municipal cost and revenue ​“recovery.”

That is, on shoring up the city budget to make up for a host of reduced revenues — related to parking meters, tax collection, and building permits — associated with the pandemic dating from January 2020 through June 2021.

“The American Rescue Plan funds will really help the city’s financial position as far as erasing that operating deficit,” city Budget Director and Acting Controller Michael Gormany said.

That roughly $20 million ARP allocation would be spent in part on cover the roughly $4 million in lost revenue from Fiscal Year 2019 – 2020 (FY20) and the roughly $13 to 15 million in lost revenue from Fiscal Year 2020 – 2021 (FY21) associated with the pandemic, he said.

Roughly $350,000 of that set-aside would also be used to pay for the salaries and benefits of two new term-limited, full-time employees charged with overseeing the accounting for ARP funds through the end of 2024.

Gormany noted that the U.S. Treasury recently released guidance on how ARP money can be spent by local governments.

While this federal aid cannot be used to reduce local taxes or bolster pension funds or support debt service payments, he said, all of the proposals included in the Elicker Administration’s initial $26.3 million should be eligible for funding by this new Covid-era aid.

And, Gormany added, New Haven’s full allocation of ARP aid will likely be roughly $90 million, to be distributed to the city in two buckets between now and the fall. That’s roughly $4 million less than the city initially estimated it would receive when ARP first passed earlier this spring.

“A Future Of Abundance, Solutions, & Sustainability”

Thursday night’s aldermanic hearing also marked the first opportunity that the public has gotten to weigh in on Elicker’s plans for how to spend ARP aid.

Mayoral challenger Karen DuBois-Walton has criticized the administration for not hosting more public input sessions sooner on how this load of federal Covid-era money should be spent. Her campaign convened an online public session last week to solicit ideas for where this money should go.

The mayor will be hosting a public information session and meetup about ARP spending plans at Hillhouse High School on Tuesday, May 25 at 6 p.m.

Over a dozen New Haveners turned out (virtually) Thursday night to offer their initial thoughts on the $26.3 million proposal.

For the most part, the plans were enthusiastically received. Attendees also called on the administration to go further, and be more ambitious, in addressing the climate change crisis, creating safe streets for all users of the road, supporting an ailing childcare industry, and boosting underserved city neighborhoods like Newhallville.

“It would be absurd for New Haven to brush aside the prevalent issue of climate change” when deciding how to spend this flood of federal aid, said New Haven Climate Movement activist and Co-Op High School senior Kiana Flores. She called for the city to hire dedicated staff committed to developing green energy jobs, electrifying city buildings and public transportation, and educating the public about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Lawrence Street resident and fellow New Haven Climate Movement organizer Isha Chavva agreed. ​“Changing climates and extreme weather events in the Northeast will impact New Haven’s basic services, infrastructure, housing, jobs and health,” she said. She called on the city to use this money to fund electric power, clean transportation like biking, reducing waste, and increasing energy efficiency.

Newhallville Community Management Team Chair Kim Harris, meanwhile, praised the administration’s plans to provide grants directly to existing neighborhood organizations as part of its ​“summer reset” program.

“I heard some words tonight that really excited me,” she said. ​“Lived experiences. Cultural equity. Counselors in training. Neighborhood-based events.”

She said that Newhallville organizations like the community management team are ready and able to accept those types of funds and put that money into community programs they know can work.

“Fund us, our organizations, our residents,” Harris said. ​“Because if you do this, this is what the world will look like with our success: Everyone in Newhallville can see there’s a place they can go that will provide life-changing information, clarity, empowerment, and education that will guide them and connect neighborhoods.”

This ARP aid, she said, presents New Haven with an opportunity to support a ​“future of abundance, solutions, and sustainability.”