Looking at the Numbers: ARP Requests
Take a look at the entire collection of requests Faulkner County has received for American Rescue Plan funds and you’ll see the enormity of the task facing the Quorum Court.
How will JPs go about deciding which requests — or portions of requests — can be approved, when the total amount submitted is substantially above the $24.6 million Faulkner County expects to receive?
Our project request spreadsheet below shows the ARP funding requests total up to $38,979,070 — around 60% more than the amount Faulkner County expects to receive.
The federal government has restricted about half the funds for infrastructure projects only, but the other half can be spent on any project (including such long-standing, major needs in our County like the proposed jail and animal shelter).
It’s interesting to note that only one project (Conway Corp. Water – Lower Ridge Road) will cost more than the amount being requested on the application.
Even if all Conway Corp. projects were omitted — as County Judge Baker explained in April — the rest of all the requests total up to a bit over $26 million, still more than the County can expect to receive.
Another look shows that all the infrastructure projects submitted so far (water, sewer / wastewater and broadband internet) add up to $33,338,048 — a whopping 85% of the total amount requested. If all the infrastructure requests are funded, only $5.6 million would be left for everything else.
And, even if Conway Corp. requests for broadband internet are omitted and you take out the two projects already approved, the total remaining infrastructure projects add up to a little over $20 million, leaving only about $4.4 million for all the other requests.
Baker Explains Why Broadband Needs to Wait:
Law Enforcement Requests
Also noted are funding requests for
- $500,000 for 911 / PSAP consolidation — an ongoing County concern we haven’t heard about in over two years
- $30,230 to replace radios for the Faulkner County Coroner (as of press time, no details/attachments are available on the County website)
- $22,160 for the Sheriff’s Dept. Reserve Unit for body armor (a request that JPs deferred in November, 2021), and
- $3.3 million for the County Fire Chiefs’ Association (23 volunteer fire departments across the County) for self-contained breathing apparatus.
County law enforcement needs have been largely ignored for several years, as these applications clearly point out.
Non-Profit Requests
The County’s non-profit organizations — United Way, Salvation Army, CAPCA, and Children’s Advocacy Alliance — have asked for a total of $1,788,632, including over $1M for rent-food-utility assistance and $574,300 for new property / space planning for the Children’s Advocacy Alliance.
(Unfortunately as of press time, the attachments from the Children’s Advocacy Alliance request on the County website are not available; the link displays a duplicate of the attachments for the Fire Chiefs’ request.)
Videos edited from original video on Faulkner County’s YouTube channel.)
Visit Faulkner County Reports on YouTube for more videos and video excerpts from this and other County meetings.
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