Lucerne County Gets Closer to the American Rescue Plan Awards


			
				                                
			
				                                
			
				                                
			
				                                Photo courtesy of Lucerne District Courthouse

The Lucerne County Council has overcome the final hurdle needed to finally determine which outside organizations will collectively receive about $60 million in American Rescue Plan funding.

A vote on the actual awards is expected at the February 14 board meeting.

Board members still don’t know which roughly 76 organizations will be made redundant due to the process set to evaluate applications.

Instead of relying on advice from the board or an administrative committee, the 11 board members decided to review the applications themselves so that everyone had a chance to participate. The county’s American Rescue consultant has created an online portal where board members can individually review and evaluate 139 external applications based on the same factors.

This week, board members voted unanimously on the final sorting options needed for Booth Management Consulting to compile a list of recipients for public disclosure and board approval.

First, the board decided that no organization would receive more than one award, and that the highest scoring entry would be selected in this scenario.

As a result, Booth removed two projects totaling $951,000 from the proposed shortlist and added the following three projects to the rankings, which together claim $158,000.

The board also agreed in Tuesday’s meeting that it would only fund projects that meet federal requirements, excluding six projects requiring more than $866,000.

Finally, the board changed the minimum score required to move projects forward, as only 24 projects with eligible requests worth $12.3 million met the provisional goal of 60 points.

The score has been lowered to 34.56 points, allowing 76 projects to be awarded, according to a chart Booth posted this week.

Acting County Manager Brian Swetz said Booth will prepare a list showing all 76 recipients and projects along with appropriation amounts for distribution to county council members and the public before the Feb. 14 meeting.

Because the list of awards is based on independent evaluation and council parameters, council members should not change it because adding or removing names after publication of names defeats the purpose of the scoring system that was created, council members said.

Council vice chairman John Lombardo said this is a unique situation because council members do not select recipients through discussion, debate and majority preference.

While the process was intended to prevent bias, outside interference and lobbying, Lombardo said he was uneasy as he had no idea which recipients would appear on the list of awards and how the board and the public would react to the end result.

Lombardo expressed his gratitude to the board members for adhering to the evaluation process and refraining from evaluating individual applicants if they had a conflict of interest.

The county will have $17.2 million of remaining American Rescue funds left after deducting external earmarked appropriations, internal county government projects, and already approved appropriations, according to the latest Booth Management report, posted alongside the council’s agenda Tuesday at luzernecounty.org.

Council member Brian Thornton told his colleagues that a new federal upgrade is under discussion that would allow at least $10 million in American Rescue funds to be used to repair and replace roads.

He asked Booth Management to look into the development, saying it could help the county do more needed work on county-owned roads to ease the burden on county taxpayers.

Company chief Robin Booth warned that the federal changes must be published in final form before they become official, promising to inform the board if they do.

Lombardo said he was encouraged by the opportunity Thornton pointed out and would support allocating an additional $5–10 million of the remaining funds to county-owned road projects if the work became eligible.

Contact Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or tweet @TLJenLearnAndes.

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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