A Once in a Generation Opportunity Slipping Away

How will the deployment of historic ARPA funds be graded by future generations? 

The City of St. Louis was awarded just shy of $500 million in pandemic relief money through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). This was more than any major city in the U.S. per capita because of our city’s vacancy, population loss, and lack of economic opportunity for residents. A historic and once-in-a-generation opportunity for our community.

Here we are, a few months shy of four years since we received these funds, and as of this morning, the city has only spent $155M. That’s less than a third of the awarded funds.  

While the funds don’t need to be spent until 2026, they do need to be obligated by the end of 2024. That’s just 10 weeks from now. Today, we have $316M obligated. That means we still have $184M on the table that is still unaccounted for, with the expiration date drawing near. 

The mayor's chief of staff, Jared Boyd, acknowledged last month that it was too late to get new requests for proposals out—a devastating blow to projects promised but not yet contracted for. So what does that mean? 

Here we are at the finish line, and the administration is presumably putting together an omnibus bill to obligate a whopping $184M in the last two months of a 48-month timeline provided by the federal government. This is happening without any public communication about how they plan to allocate such a large amount of funding. As Chair of Budget and Public Employees, I can confirm there has been no communication with our committee about the mayor’s plans.

ARPA funds were an enormous opportunity to invest in our communities—and, just as importantly, to build trust. We have seen the opposite of that. From a failure to deploy funds in a reasonable timeframe to the debacle with the North Side Grant Fund and, just today, egregious oversights are coming to light in the Private Building Stabilization Program. What's next is a last-minute dash to the finish line with no time left for robust community discussion or even thoughtful planning. This is no way to spend $184M. 

The current administration’s actions do not optimize results. Where was the data-driven decision-making we were promised? Maximizing results takes careful planning, true transparency, and competent and timely deployment of resources.