PART II: How did Ashland County villages spend American Rescue Plan Act money?

LOUDONVILLE — You didn’t have to try too hard during the American Rescue Plan Act’s early days to hear the phrase “revenue loss” or “revenue replacement.”

The two words had signficant implications for local governments. Essentially, it meant recipients of these dollars had fewer restrictions. Governments that chose to use the money in this way had to follow a U.S. Treasury formula to calculate their actual revenue lost as a result of the pandemic.

In Ashland County, roughly $3.5 million of the ARPA came to townships and villages. Many of those governments chose to classify it as revenue loss, enabling governing bodies to place the money into general funds.

The Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, found local governments lost around $117 billion in expected revenue during the early days of the pandemic. The revenue replacement provision in the law, therefore, "prevented public sector layoffs and furloughs, maintained critical government services and kept public coffers whole," reads a Brookings article.

But Loudonville, a village in southern Ashland County with roughly 2,900 residents, chose against the revenue loss route.

"We didn't think that was right, discussing it with (the fiscal officer) and (the village administrator) and council," said Jason Van Sickle, the village's mayor. "We tried to get some projects that we needed done to help the village keep moving forward."

Loudonville represents one of the eight villages across Ashland County that received an allocation from the $1.9 trillion stimulus package meant to stave the impact of COVID-19. The county's 15 townships also received money.

Townships across Ashland County received $2.6 million in ARPA money. Part I explored how those townships spent the money.

The villages received $819,153.

Type in your village in the table below to discover how much it received and scroll further to find more details about each village in color-coded boxes.

Ashland County governments used the money in various ways, similar to the city of Ashland's expenditures. Overall, these townships and villages used their ARPA money for infrastructure projects, pieces of equipment and upgrades to buildings.

There are rules defining how this money can be spent, including these general uses:

• Public health and negative economic impacts of the pandemic   
• Premium pay to essential workers  
• Government services to respond to revenue loss because of the pandemic  
• Water, sewer and broadband infrastructure   
• Disaster relief  
• Surface transportation  
• Community Development Block Grants

These bullet points come from the Treasury's "Final Rule," issued in January 2022.

However, the National League of Cities, an organization that represents cities, towns, and villages in the United States, said the Final Rule is non-exhaustive.

"Municipalities may use their funds in any way that responds directly to a pandemic impact," reads an NLC report on the Treasury's Final Rule.

Like the city of Ashland, townships and villages are also under the gun to obligate, or encumber, these funds by Dec. 31. They then get another two years to actually spend it. If there's money left over past the Dec. 31 deadline, they face a clawback.

Approximately $16,148.40 remains unencumbered among villages across Ashland County, as of mid-October.

Polk Village trustees have yet to spend any of the ARPA money, but the entire amount has been appropriated to a storm sewer project, according to its fiscal officer.

What's a disadvantaged community?

The Treasury intended that the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds program — the pot of ARPA money sent to local governments — be used to “support a truly equitable recovery and address health and economic disparities, exacerbated by the pandemic, in the most underserved communities.”

To define who those people might be, the federal government built a map using 2010 census data (2020 numbers weren’t yet completed at the time).

Below is a map that zooms in on Ashland County, which has 16,961 people that live in four census tracts defined as “disadvantaged,” according to the CEJST. The shaded parts of the map below represent disadvantaged areas.

The areas in Ashland County that appear in tracts designated as disadvantaged include the townships of Ruggles, Troy, Orange (partial), Milton (partial), Clear Creek, Montgomery (partial), Green (partial) and Hanover.

The northern and central parts of the City of Ashland also appear, as well as the villages of Savannah, Bailey Lakes and Loudonville.

For more information on what factors go into defining a disadvantaged community, click here.

What do residents think?

So far, Ashland Source has heard from 203 residents around Ashland County who responded to a survey sent to the publication’s email newsletter subscriber list of 11,229. Of those, 84 have indicated they live outside of the city. 

The survey is unscientific and far from representative of the county population’s general sentiment — but the respondents’ answers offer real insights.

Specifically, the survey asks respondents to rate their level of awareness involving ARPA on a scale from 1-5. It also asks respondents if they feel involved with the way their local government or school district is spending the money.

There were 41 respondents, or 48%, who ranked their level of awareness as either a one or a two. Many — 23 of them — ranked their awareness in the middle. Only 21% ranked their awareness in the four and five range.

When it came to being heard, 70 ranked their voice or involvement low, at one or two. That amounts to 83% of those township and village residents who filled out the survey.

Nine respondents ranked their feeling of involvement in the middle and only four said they felt highly involved.

There were five respondents from the survey who listed Loudonville as their residence. Those people ranked their level of awareness and voice at three, so down the middle.

Loudonville Village Council, like in Milton Township, passed ordinances during public meetings for all expenditures. In fact, all but one of its purchases went through committees first, before council voted during open meetings.

The one purchase that didn't go through committee involved the purchase of a house on South Spring Street. Read more about that here.

How did your village spend the money?

Below, you'll find boxes with specific information on how this money was spent — itemized by project, amount spent and payee, or which vendor received the funds.

The boxes are organized in alphabetical order, but color coded. The boxes with a red tone denote a "disadvantaged" community according to the factors found in the map above. Those that don't fit those parameters have a green tone.

In some cases, you will see that villages spent more than received. This discrepancy exists because some villages held the money in interest-bearing accounts. So the "received" amount indicates the amount received from the federal government. The difference is how much interest was earned.

Financial information came from public records provided by fiscal officers.