Officials from the City of Petal have seemingly worked out how to best utilize the $2.6 million expected from the American Rescue Plan Act, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill issued by the federal government to speed up the United States’ recovery from the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayor Tony Ducker said the lion’s share of the funding – of which the city has already received $1.3 million – will go toward several water/sewer improvement projects around the city. The mayor said he would like to have nine or 10 such projects planned and ready to go by the time all the funds came through.
“(That’s) understanding you probably wouldn’t get all of those things done, but you can try to knock out, in order of importance, what we could get done,” he said. “(The amount received from the plan) is better than zero, but honestly, if we had $20 million worth of money that we could put into that, I could find projects for that.
“That wouldn’t be an issue whatsoever.”
Temporary guidance from the Department of Treasury, which has stated that the funding allocations will remain available through Dec. 31, 2024, states that funds from the American Rescue Plan Act can be used for improvements to water, sewer and broadband Internet. Of the monies distributed through the plan, Forrest County is expected to receive approximately $14 million.
“The county doesn’t operate any water and sewer, so I’ve already presented to the board (of supervisors) just shy of $2 million worth of projects that I would hope they would be able to provide us some assistance,” Ducker said. “It’s for customers that aren’t in the city, but are obviously in the county.”
One of Ducker’s priorities as far as water/sewer improvements would be the Eastover neighborhood, which is off Macedonia Road, just east of the city limits. Although that area is outside the city limits, residents there receive sewer service from the City of Petal.
“The Eastover area, we’ve had a lot of issues and we’ve pumped a lot of money into that,” Ducker said. “I would really love to be able to put that to rest once and for all.
“That would be a great opportunity for us and the county to partner, to help residents that we’re both serving.”
City officials are currently waiting on further guidance on exactly how and where to spend the funds – including the remaining $1.3 million, which will hopefully come in by January or February 2022.
“Obviously, I would like to see at least the other expected $1.3 million to be in the bank before we do stuff,” Ducker said. “We are in the planning phase, but I don’t see us turning anything loose until spring time; that way, we’ll know what kind of money we have.
“You hate to do a little project, than after the fact, you get a larger sum of money, and you really could have done a larger-scale project. But it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to knock out some really large things, and not affect anybody’s rates.”
Back in June, Hattiesburg City Council members, along with Mayor Toby Barker, discussed how to best utilize the $12.87 million received by the City of Hattiesburg from the American Rescue Plan Act. The mayor specifically addressed infrastructure elements and limitations of the funds, which directed $65.1 billion in direct federal aid to municipalities around the country.
