Rep. Greg Stanton announced today that Arizona will receive more than $5 billion in federal relief funds under the American Rescue Plan to support economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cities in Arizona’s Ninth District, which Stanton represents, will receive more than $610 million to help bring back jobs, address economic fallout, and lay the foundation for a strong, equitable recovery—while prioritizing equity and flexibility for governments. Phoenix will receive $396 million, Mesa $105 million, Tempe $45.8 million, Chandler $34.5 million and Scottsdale $29 million. Maricopa County will receive an additional $871 million.
The State of Arizona will receive more than $4 billion dollars, and an additional $226 million for smaller municipalities, called “non-entitlement units,” who did not receive funds directly from the Treasury. The Treasury will provide further guidance on distributions to smaller municipalities in the coming days.
“Arizona communities were hit hard by this pandemic, and these funds will be critical to helping our cities recover and restore essential public services,” Stanton said. “We’re making sure these federal dollars are delivered directly to local governments to continue their efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, support small businesses, address housing insecurity, rehire essential public sector workers and more—to ensure no community gets left behind in our economic recovery.”
The Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds provide substantial flexibility for each jurisdiction to meet local needs—including support for households, small businesses, impacted industries, essential workers, and the communities hardest-hit by the crisis. Within the categories of eligible uses listed, recipients have broad flexibility to decide how best to use this funding to meet the needs of their communities. In addition to allowing for flexible spending up to the level of their revenue loss, recipients can use funds to:
- Support public health expenditures, by – among other uses – funding COVID-19 mitigation efforts, medical expenses, behavioral healthcare, mental health and substance misuse treatment and certain public health and safety personnel responding to the crisis;
- Address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, including by rehiring public sector workers, providing aid to households facing food, housing or other financial insecurity, offering small business assistance, and extending support for industries hardest hit by the crisis
- Aid the communities and populations hardest hit by the crisis, supporting an equitable recovery by addressing not only the immediate harms of the pandemic, but its exacerbation of longstanding public health, economic and educational disparities
- Provide premium pay for essential workers, offering additional support to those who have borne and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service during the pandemic; and,
- Invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure, improving access to clean drinking water, supporting vital wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, and expanding access to broadband internet.
A breakdown of the funds allocated for Arizona municipalities is available HERE.
A breakdown of funds allocated for Arizona counties is available HERE.
More information is available HERE.