Moscow City Council approved planned use of American Rescue Plan Act funds, amended prices on general sewer facility charges and opted into Idaho’s participation in the nationwide settlement of opioid claims.
America Rescue Plan Act
The City of Moscow received $5,528,399 from the ARPA. The money will be divided into two payments, one delivered in June and the final delivered at the same time next year.
One of the guidelines was to ensure that the money is assigned to a project by 2024. The other guideline is to ensure that the full amount must be spent by the end of 2026 or it will be taken back.
“One of the stated objectives was to replace lost revenue for eligible state, local, territorial and tribal governments to support vital public services and retain jobs,” City Supervisor Gary Riedner said. “The immediate economic stabilization for households and businesses address systematic public health and economic challenges.”
The main places Moscow was to focus on were that of business and nonprofit assistance. $750,000 will be put into programs that will be developed and approved by the council.
$150,000 to be allocated for the use of affordable housing assistance. This assistance will be given out in $50,000 payments over the next three years and be matched in the city’s annual fiscal year budget.
$1 million will be allocated to aid in the new stormwater utility in two projects. The first will be the purchasing of a new sewer jet truck for $600,000 that will aid in cleaning and inspection of storm sewers. The second will be allocating $400,000 to aid in the Hogg Creek Daylighting project to be a part of the Lilly Street Reconstruction project.
$3,628,399 will be allocated for the city’s water infrastructure to support water transmission projects.
“We’re talking about getting water from where it is produced on the west side of town,” Riedner said. “To across town to where our storage facilities are, which are predominantly on the east side of town.”
Money that isn’t spent from business and nonprofit and affordable housing assistance by 2023 will be moved to aid in the water infrastructure projects.
Sewer general facilities charges
The city council approved an amendment to the sewer general facilities charges. GFC is a one-time payment to cover the cost of the impact of new development on the utility system.
The amendment on GFC is due to case law from the results of North Idaho Building Contractors versus City of Hayden of what a fair and equitable way to calculate GFC.
“Through the process of our rate study, we took a look at our existing general facilities charges,” Deputy City Supervisor Tyler Palmer said. “What we found was that when we applied the formula that was generated through that case law, we were actually charging less than what was allowable by the case law.”
Opiod litigation
Moscow City Council agreed to enter into opioid litigation. Idaho joined the nationwide settlement resolving opioid claims with Johnson & Johnson, Amerisource Bergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson.
Certain local governments can participate and receive benefits in the agreement. The amount of money will depend on how many local governments join in the litigation.
“The state’s proposing this specific allocation agreement where 40% goes to the state 40% goes to participating counties and cities,” City Attorney Mia Bautista said. “20% go to regional health districts.”
For the state’s proposition, 60% of eligible counties would need to sign onto the litigation to be effective. If all eligible counties join, the amount of money would be $120 million over 18 years.
The money from the settlement will help the state to be able to address the opioid epidemic by providing funding for opioid remediation and through future remediation projects.
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @DVR_Tweets