12/23/2024
“Great Falls This Week” is reported and written by Matt Hudson. Send your news and tips to [email protected].
American Rescue Plan project planning comes to a close
The Great Falls City Commission last week earmarked the remaining $198,000 from a massive federal COVID relief fund. It represented the last 1% of spending under the program.
Dec. 31 is the deadline for local governments to commit funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, an infrastructure spending measure that injected more than $35 million in direct aid into Cascade County and Great Falls.
Among the funded projects are water and sewer upgrades, Great Falls Fire Rescue building improvements and evidence facilities for both the Great Falls Police Department and Cascade County Sheriff’s Office. Officials also allocated millions of dollars to nonprofit community organizations. And the Civic Center received funding for major upgrades to its municipal court and outdated HVAC and boiler systems.
The city of Great Falls and Cascade County each administered their own funds. Great Falls’ share was about $19.4 million — a major influx of federal dollars from the ARPA program known as State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. City Manager Greg Doyon said there were three times in recent history that local governments saw this level of federal aid. The first was after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The second was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 following the Great Recession.
The third time was the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to ARPA.
“With my approach to the ARPA funding, it was such a significant amount of money that it really needed to be put to the highest and best use,” Doyon told Montana Free Press. “And there were conditions on it from the federal government that we needed to adhere to.”
In general, spending conditions required that the recovery funds address the public health and economic impacts of COVID, replace lost government revenue, provide pay to essential workers and make investments in water, sewer, housing and broadband. Governments also had reporting requirements to account for how that money was spent.
The largest ARPA recipients and projects from the city’s fund included upgrades to the police department front entrance and evidence building ($4.1 million), equipment and building upgrades for Great Falls Fire Rescue ($4.9 million) and Civic Center upgrades ($7.1 million). Doyon said that much of the deferred maintenance might not have been addressed otherwise with limited capital improvement resources available in the regular budget.
“Probably about 90% of them would not be done,” Doyon said, looking over the list of projects. “And that’s just off the top of my head.”
The final designations that the city commission made last week went toward contingency funds for two of the biggest city projects under ARPA. The police evidence building got an additional $75,000, and the municipal court relocation project added $123,040.91.
In addition to prioritizing projects on city properties, the city commission and a review committee held several meetings to narrow a list of community grant requests. Fourteen organizations ended up receiving nearly $2.9 million of the ARPA funds.
The biggest single community grant was $375,000 to Peace Place for its facility relocation and renovation. The organization provides free respite services to children with developmental, trauma-based or medical needs and outgrew its original location in First Presbyterian Church.
“[ARPA] Has made a huge impact,” said Peace Place Director Louisa Libertelli-Dunn. “We were able to double our capacity, service-wise, for our kids and create more unique and diversified programming that will adapt to their specific needs.”
The funds paid for major renovations and accessibility upgrades at a new Fourth Avenue South location, which officially opened in February. For many of the kids they serve, the pandemic put some of their development on pause.
“Two years after the fact, we’re still working on getting their social skills what they would have been before COVID,” Libertelli-Dunn said.
Cascade County had its own pot of money to distribute — a total of $15.8 million, all of which has been earmarked. A large portion went toward major rural water and sewer projects, including more than $2.3 million for Black Eagle, $400,000 each for Sand Coulee and Sun Prairie and $500,000 for Belt, among others.
Centerville School received $320,176 to drill a new well and upgrade equipment to deliver water to the school building. An unreliable well had caused school cancellations in recent years, affecting not only school days but one senior night basketball game.
“Previous to ARPA, three times within five years the school had the well go bad,” said Erik Ingman, Centerville school board chairperson. “It’s the only source of water out there, so if the well goes down, you have to cancel school.”
Ingman said the school matched the ARPA grant with $30,000 of its own to get the project underway. The project is in the design and permitting phase, and Water and Environmental Technologies, where Ingman is an engineer, will perform the work.
Other large recipients of county ARPA funds include the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office and detention center ($2.8 million) and Montana ExpoPark ($2.3 million). The county had its own list of community grant recipients, including the C.M. Russell Museum, Great Falls College MSU and a $1 million grant to the Great Falls Development Alliance to develop the AgriTech Park industrial area.
Nationally, the American Rescue Plan Act was a $1.9 trillion aid package, of which local government aid was just a part. It had an array of programs, including stimulus checks and specific funding for health care and transportation. There were other ARPA allocations made by the Montana Legislature in 2021 and state-level grants across Montana.
In addition, ARPA was not the only COVID-era infusion of federal aid. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed a year before ARPA, was a reimbursement program that was well-known for direct taxpayer payments and the Paycheck Protection Program. Great Falls received about $10.1 million for eligible reimbursements from that program, most of which went toward public safety personnel costs.
According to the city budget, CARES Act funds have been a stabilizing force to offset revenue losses in the years since COVID. Nearly $1 million from CARES balanced the general fund in the prior fiscal year, and that reserve is reaching its end.
However, it’s ARPA that had a hard deadline of Dec. 31, 2024, to commit money to projects, and local governments across the country are making their final funding decisions under the program. Any unused money would have to be sent back to the federal government.
Historically, these kinds of federal cash infusions came on the heels of devastating events. At the local level, City Manager Doyon said these upgrades will potentially avert a future infrastructure emergency.
“The story is wait for something catastrophic to happen before you know, we end up getting funding to replace it,” he said. “In this case, we were able to get ahead.”
More Information
City of Great Falls ARPA projects list
Cascade County ARPA projects list
State of Montana ARPA reporting and information site
U.S. Department of the Treasury ARPA reporting portal
Trash Talk
Users of the Belt-Armington solid waste dump site off U.S. Highway 89 are being diverted to other county sites after a lease negotiation fell apart.
Cascade County leased the site on property owned by James Bumgarner under the business name Rimrock Valley Preserve. Bumgarner said that earlier this year, he gave the county notice that he wanted to renegotiate the annual payment, which he said had been $1,500 since 2004.
“I said $4,500 per year for five years,” he told Montana Free Press. “If you’re not interested in this lease, please take this as your 30-day notice to vacate the property.”
Bumgarner closed the gate on the site on Dec. 14, nearly six months after the previous lease agreement ended. No new lease has been negotiated. Annual taxes on the entire parcel have remained between $900 and $1,100 for a decade.
On Dec. 16, Cascade County issued a press release saying that the county is exploring “all available options to mitigate this community issue” but that it didn’t agree to the increased lease fee.
Cascade County Commissioner Jim Larson, who actually owned the property prior to Bumgarner, told MTFP that $4,500 was an outrageous request.
“Worst thing is that the citizens are taking the consequences,” Larson said. “So we need to get something done. But if we go to another site, it will take us a couple months at least to build something.”
Cascade County has a contract with Republic Services to run the solid waste division, which includes eight dump sites and the High Plains Landfill. With Belt-Armington closed, the next closest is near Stockett, 23 miles away from Belt. It’s not yet clear what the dump site closure means for the Republic contract.
The county’s solid waste operation has been the subject of much discussion in 2024. County officials have met multiple times to update a fee schedule that had been inconsistently applied in the past. As a result, county commissioners passed a 45% increase to solid waste assessments in October.
A month later, former county budget officer Mary Embleton took the county to court seeking to void the solid waste fee increases. She claimed in court documents that the county failed to provide the public with proper notice of the meeting and a chance to comment before passing the resolution. The county has responded, saying the meetings had 48-hour notices and Embleton attended them. In court documents, the county said Embleton, who is representing herself, cited incorrect statutes related to the county’s oversight. A judge hasn’t ruled on the case.
5 Things to Know in Great Falls
The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians last week announced plans for a major hotel and resort atop Mount Royal, above the “GF” logo on the northwest side of town. Initial plans include a 200-room hotel, an outdoor water park, a 10,000-square-foot event space, a bowling alley, gambling and more. “We’re really excited about this,” tribal Chairman Gerald Gray told MTFP. “As a tribe, we’ve always said we wanted to be self-sufficient.” The first step will be to petition the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to convert the land to be held in trust, which would impact the kinds of gambling allowed. A press release from the tribe said the project hopes to bring an economic boom to the area. Read more about the project here.
Montana U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich was in Great Falls last week to announce the conclusion of a multi-agency effort to arrest and prosecute people involved in a fentanyl trafficking operation. The multi-year operation began with a 2022 traffic stop, and the investigation led to the arrest and sentencing of 10 people. The Russell Country Drug Task Force is made up of local and federal law enforcement agencies.
Mayor Cory Reeves recognized the work of Eric Ray, who led Neighborhood Council No. 5 as chairman for 12 years. Reeves said that Ray was the cornerstone of the council, which became a “model of civic engagement” in the city. Ray will step down from his position upon the expiration of his term next year. “Eric empowered citizens to raise their voices, attend meetings, and advocate for their needs, building a stronger, more connected community,” Reeves said.
As part of a 12 Days of Giving campaign, Gov. Greg Gianforte encouraged donations to Many Rivers Whole Health, a mental health and substance abuse recovery care provider with a facility in Great Falls. This fall, MTFP compiled the recipients of grants from the Gianforte Family Foundation. That data and the accompanying story can be found here.
Candy Masterpiece in downtown Great Falls will close its doors after 25 years. Store owner Angie Bruskotter wrote on Facebook that she is grateful for the customers and friends she’s met over the years, but “it’s time to open a new chapter and retire from the candy business.”
Programming Note
Great Falls This Week will not publish on Monday, Dec. 30, as the MTFP staff takes a breather through the Christmas holiday. We will return to our regular publication schedule on Jan. 6.