A new landing page on the Cumberland County website highlights the $65 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds that have streamed into the county, and how those funds are being spent.
The site was unveiled at the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners’ Monday meeting.
The American Rescue Plan Act is a $1.9 trillion federal Covid-19 stimulus package approved in 2021. It includes provisions such as tax credits, unemployment benefit extensions and small business grants. Cumberland County was granted $65 million in relief funds in through the package.
Here’s what the new site features:
New website page
Information on ARPA funds and applications are now easier to find on the site. Previously, the only way to find ARPA information for Cumberland County was to navigate to the Board of Commissioners’ section of the website and scroll down to the ARPA website page. Now, the ARPA page is linked directly from at the top of the county website.
“Why not just put the information out there to be viewable by the general public?” Tye Vaught, chief of staff for Cumberland County, said in an interview with CityView.
Vaught and his team have been working on the website project after receiving continual calls and questions from county residents about ARPA funds and how and where they are being used. County staff have had internal dashboards for some time, Vaught said, and decided that public-facing dashboards could also be beneficial.
“I think good government is a transparent government,” Vaught said.
As well as being accessible through a button on the main website page, the American Rescue Plan page has also been added as a department under the “Departments” tab.
Visitors to the webpage can see reports on funds, meeting recaps, dashboards and information on small business assistance. The assistance program is currently closed to new applicants.
New dashboards
There are four separate dashboards now available on the county site that display information about ARPA funds and their uses: one for the overall ARPA funds, a special programs dashboard, a small business assistance dashboard and one for Fayetteville Technical Community College’s H.O.P.E. Re-connect initiative.
The dashboard for ARPA shows where the $65.2 million in federal funding has been allocated so far, the status of the ARPA-funded projects, how much money is left and details about each project. The dashboard also provides a breakdown of the numbers of individuals impacted by each ARPA project.
“I think it's beneficial to them (residents) to know where their funding — where, in essence, their federal tax dollars — are going as far as the programs are concerned,” Vaught said about the dashboards.
The special projects dashboard gives details on the county's special projects that utilize ARPA funds, such as the county employee daycare center, NARCAN distribution and employee retention incentives.
The Small Business Assistance dashboard lists out which businesses received part of the $2.7 million allocated to assist local businesses, and how much each received. The small business assistance program allowed small businesses in Cumberland County to receive a grant of up to $50,000 to assist in pandemic recovery. In total, 60 businesses received grants across Cumberland County.
The last dashboard is for FTCC’s H.O.P.E. Re-connect initiative. The program helps adults in Cumberland County learn relevant skills for high-demand jobs across the county, according to the FTCC website. The $2 million in county funding helps participants offset the cost of living while participating in internships and on-the-job training.
“Providing easy access and transparency to the citizens of Cumberland County has always been a goal,” Commissioner Toni Stewart said at Monday’s meeting. “The dashboard gives fingertip access to how their representatives are using the ARPA funds.”
For more information about the dashboards and ARPA projects, visit https://www.cumberlandcountync.gov/departments/commissioners-group/commissioners/american-rescue-plan
Contact Char Morrison at cmorrison@cityviewnc.com.
