American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funds

Welcome to the Town of Blacksburg’s American Rescue Plan Community Project Page!

What is ARPA?

The American Rescue Plan was signed into law by President Biden on March 11, 2021. The $1.9 trillion dollar plan offers assistance to millions of Americans and assistance to communities struggling to retain normalcy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Town of Blacksburg is receiving $13.3 million over the next two years.

Eligible Expenditures for ARPA Funds

1. Supporting public health response
2. Addressing the negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency
3. Serving the hardest-hit communities and families
4. Investing in water and sewer infrastructure
5. Investing in broadband infrastructure
6. Replacing revenue loss

For more details on what is included as part of eligible ARPA expenditures, see the ARPA documents section on the right-hand side of this page.

Timeline for Use of Funds

• Unless specifically excluded, the cost must have been incurred after March 3, 2021
• Funds must be obligated by December 31, 2024
• Funds must be expended by July 1, 2026

How should the Town use these ARPA funds?

Staff from the Town Manager’s Office developed an internal process for developing, reviewing, and selecting ARPA projects. An ARPA Advisory Team was formed to guide the process and included a key staff member from each of the Town's departments.

The ARPA Advisory Team created and distributed an internal ARPA survey to gather project ideas. Departments worked closely with their staff to identify and submit potential projects. The Advisory Team also created and sent a similar survey to 52 community partner organizations that directly serve Town of Blacksburg residents. Through the survey, community partner organizations were able to submit project ideas of their own. The ARPA Advisory Team then reviewed all project ideas to confirm ARPA eligibility. The 57 projects that were determined to be ARPA eligible were included in a community survey that sought broad public input. As part of this survey, respondents were asked to prioritize project ideas generated by both Town staff and community partners. They were also given the opportunity to suggest additional project ideas. 1,549 citizens responded to the community ARPA survey in Feb-March 2022. Click here to see the citizen feedback provided.

The ARPA Advisory Team worked to identify projects that scored highly according to these selection criteria and reflected strong community support. Balancing all of these considerations, the advisory team developed a draft funding scenario with a slate of projects that:

• are strongly supported by the community as a whole
• will accelerate COVID recovery for residents and businesses
• will provide critically needed support and services for our community’s most vulnerable residents
• are anticipated to have strategic and long-term impacts
• are logistically feasible within the ARPA timeframe

A funding scenario was presented to Town Council for their consideration and deliberation in early May 2022 and was further refined based on their feedback. The final report details the approved ARPA project list for the Town of Blacksburg.