County Commissioners Approve ARPA Grants
March 14, 2023 at 11:44 p.m.
County Commissioners Approve ARPA Grants
By David [email protected]
Local nonprofits also were informed that the end to apply for ARPA grants from the county was near.
Renea Salyer, The Beaman Home director, presented her request for $44,000. She said the money will be used for doors for The Beaman Home’s basic needs shelter, electrical and lighting to be upgraded and a camera system to be installed.
Jerrad Jones, Kosciusko County Work Release, sought $5,836 for a walk-through metal detector for work release to “help combat some of the problems we’re having with contraband within work release.” He said they currently do pat-down searches, but “strategically placed items” can be missed during those pat-down searches.
Milford Fire Department Chief Virgil Sharp requested $32,000 for more portable hand-held radios. He said one of the biggest reasons was to get a few more radios out to the firefighters.
John Lantz, Animal Welfare League Board of Directors president, brought a request for $23,898.
AWL had $552,419.23 in revenue in 2022, but $550,210.36 in expenses, leaving about $2,208. “Almost 60% of our expenses are employees that make $9 to $12 an hour, and so we’re just here asking for some support for insulation, gutters and parking lot,” Lantz said.
He provided a graph comparing Kosciusko County’s animal shelter expenses to counties with similar population and their animal shelter expenses. “You can see they far exceed what we’re spending,” he said.
The graph shows Howard County, with a population of 83,349, had animal shelter expenses in 2022 of $991,657; Bartholomew County, population 82,475, expenses of $674,640; Kosciusko County, population 80,151, 2022 expenses of $550,210; and Hancock County, population 78,616, expenses of $681,588.
Warsaw Police Department Chief Scott Whitaker presented an ARPA grant request of $10,952 for three mobile police radios for detective vehicles. He said they were not budgeted for last year or this year.
Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Chris McKeand presented a request for $86,322 for a “continuation of our body cam program that we’ve been working on the last couple months.” He said they’ve upgraded the body cameras they’re using in the jail and court security, which integrates with the system they’re using.
“This actual request will upgrade our body camera in-car systems, along with the Cloud storage that we use on the patrol side and detectives out in the community,”?he said.
Emily Worrell, executive director of the North Webster Community Center, requested the largest amount Tuesday at $252,800. She said the funds will go toward “the replacement of the existing portion of our roof that needs replaced and all of the 1970s metal windows left in our facility.”
She said this is part of phase 2 of their facility project, and are just in the finishing stages of phase 1. She said they have seen a 200% growth in the NWCC over the last year.
“So with the quick growth we have seen the life expectancy of some of our things come to an end faster than we expected,” Worrell stated.
The last ARPA funding request on Tuesday came from Erin Rowland, Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) executive director. Her request was for $19,100 that will cover several things “that were challenges for us during Covid,” she said. Those include training binders for CASA volunteers, fingerprinting of the volunteers which is required, and marketing tools to help recruit volunteers to help abused and neglected children.
After all the requests were presented, Commissioner Cary Groninger said the county’s ARPA committee, which he serves on, went through all the requests “pretty vigilantly.” He said a lot of them got pared down from what their initial ask was.
“We have set the next meeting as the deadline for any nonprofits to apply for any ARPA funds. The last meeting was the last one for any of the radios, so we’re starting to wind down,” Groninger said. As a ballpark figure, he said the county has a little shy of $5 million with the approval of the requests Tuesday.
Groninger said the county has some projects coming up.
“The thing to remember is, this money was - a big share of this money was given to the county to reimburse them for the losses they had during Covid. So, we have been able to do some things for the entities outside of the county with this money, but a majority of that money was meant to make up for some of the losses the county had during the pandemic,” he said before making the motion to approve the ARPA requests as recommended.
Local nonprofits also were informed that the end to apply for ARPA grants from the county was near.
Renea Salyer, The Beaman Home director, presented her request for $44,000. She said the money will be used for doors for The Beaman Home’s basic needs shelter, electrical and lighting to be upgraded and a camera system to be installed.
Jerrad Jones, Kosciusko County Work Release, sought $5,836 for a walk-through metal detector for work release to “help combat some of the problems we’re having with contraband within work release.” He said they currently do pat-down searches, but “strategically placed items” can be missed during those pat-down searches.
Milford Fire Department Chief Virgil Sharp requested $32,000 for more portable hand-held radios. He said one of the biggest reasons was to get a few more radios out to the firefighters.
John Lantz, Animal Welfare League Board of Directors president, brought a request for $23,898.
AWL had $552,419.23 in revenue in 2022, but $550,210.36 in expenses, leaving about $2,208. “Almost 60% of our expenses are employees that make $9 to $12 an hour, and so we’re just here asking for some support for insulation, gutters and parking lot,” Lantz said.
He provided a graph comparing Kosciusko County’s animal shelter expenses to counties with similar population and their animal shelter expenses. “You can see they far exceed what we’re spending,” he said.
The graph shows Howard County, with a population of 83,349, had animal shelter expenses in 2022 of $991,657; Bartholomew County, population 82,475, expenses of $674,640; Kosciusko County, population 80,151, 2022 expenses of $550,210; and Hancock County, population 78,616, expenses of $681,588.
Warsaw Police Department Chief Scott Whitaker presented an ARPA grant request of $10,952 for three mobile police radios for detective vehicles. He said they were not budgeted for last year or this year.
Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Chris McKeand presented a request for $86,322 for a “continuation of our body cam program that we’ve been working on the last couple months.” He said they’ve upgraded the body cameras they’re using in the jail and court security, which integrates with the system they’re using.
“This actual request will upgrade our body camera in-car systems, along with the Cloud storage that we use on the patrol side and detectives out in the community,”?he said.
Emily Worrell, executive director of the North Webster Community Center, requested the largest amount Tuesday at $252,800. She said the funds will go toward “the replacement of the existing portion of our roof that needs replaced and all of the 1970s metal windows left in our facility.”
She said this is part of phase 2 of their facility project, and are just in the finishing stages of phase 1. She said they have seen a 200% growth in the NWCC over the last year.
“So with the quick growth we have seen the life expectancy of some of our things come to an end faster than we expected,” Worrell stated.
The last ARPA funding request on Tuesday came from Erin Rowland, Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) executive director. Her request was for $19,100 that will cover several things “that were challenges for us during Covid,” she said. Those include training binders for CASA volunteers, fingerprinting of the volunteers which is required, and marketing tools to help recruit volunteers to help abused and neglected children.
After all the requests were presented, Commissioner Cary Groninger said the county’s ARPA committee, which he serves on, went through all the requests “pretty vigilantly.” He said a lot of them got pared down from what their initial ask was.
“We have set the next meeting as the deadline for any nonprofits to apply for any ARPA funds. The last meeting was the last one for any of the radios, so we’re starting to wind down,” Groninger said. As a ballpark figure, he said the county has a little shy of $5 million with the approval of the requests Tuesday.
Groninger said the county has some projects coming up.
“The thing to remember is, this money was - a big share of this money was given to the county to reimburse them for the losses they had during Covid. So, we have been able to do some things for the entities outside of the county with this money, but a majority of that money was meant to make up for some of the losses the county had during the pandemic,” he said before making the motion to approve the ARPA requests as recommended.
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