While the Oak Park village board of trustees began discussions about how to help migrants, a proposal to use $1 million in unspent American Rescue Plan Act funding to support the asylum-seekers came before the board. It turns out Oak Park still had roughly $4 million in ARPA funds, begging the question: Why wasn’t the money earmarked for pandemic recovery already spent?
Oak Park received a total of $38.9 million in ARPA funding to address COVID-19’s impact on the community. A portion of ARPA funding has been allocated in fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024 to address capital needs, village manager Kevin Jackson said in an email. And $3 million from Oak Park’s ARPA lost revenue was only recently allocated in the 2024 budget to fund capital projects.
The remaining ARPA funds need to be committed by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2026, village president Vicki Scaman said.
At the Nov. 20 Oak Park village board of trustees meeting, the board decided to allocate $500,000 in unspent ARPA funding to support migrants, rather than the proposed $1 million. So, what has happened to the other $500,000?
Nothing yet, Scaman said. The board has not decided where the rest of the ARPA funding will be directed.
One possibility is to support small businesses, Scaman said, and another is to help address the homeless population holistically. Trustee Lucia Robinson said she’d like to see it spent on projects to benefit the community, such as the Oak Park Avenue Streetscape and Utility Projects, during the board’s Nov. 28 meeting.
“We do want to be very thoughtful in whatever direction we take with the last dollars that we received from ARPA,” Scaman said.
According to the Village of Oak Park website, eligible uses for the funds include supporting public health responses, replacing public sector revenue loss, investing in certain infrastructure, addressing negative economic affects and offering premium pay for essential workers.
“The funds allocated through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) are intended to help offset revenue losses resulting from the pandemic, as well as fund other community needs,” according to the Village of Oak Park website.
Keeping in mind all the ways the community was affected by COVID-19 is important in deciding how to spend those funds, Scaman said.
“To very differing degrees, we’re all still experiencing some level of trauma from COVID,” she said. “There are people that are really still hurting and small businesses that are still hurting and individual families that have not recovered.”
When the pandemic hit, the previous village board had to amend the budget and reduce spending, Scaman said, canceling all work that was not already committed and necessary.
“We rebounded strongly because our community has always supported small business,” Scaman said. “We are a community that I believe has been built on civic engagement.”
Village staff will determine how the $500,000 already allocated for migrant support will be spent, Scaman said. She said she imagines it could fund housing opportunities at the West Cook YMCA and The Carleton of Oak Park Hotel, as well as food, translation and legal services for the asylum-seekers.
When the emergency order ends on Feb. 6, additional options may be presented to the village board for supporting the migrants, Scaman said. Additional partnerships would be necessary to continue support, she said.
“We really do need to advocate as strongly as we can and present a plan as soundly as we can to Cook County government and state legislators to secure more funding,” Scaman said. “We will be limited as to what we can do on our own.”
