County Board doles out another $1.7 million in COVID cash

QUINCY — The Adams County Board signed off on a little more than $1.7 million in American Rescue Plan Act spending at Tuesday night’s meeting.

So with $6.5 million spent and another $7.4 million in projects under review, the county has nearly exhausted the money it received by the federal government following the COVID-19 pandemic.

That figure actually exceeds the $12.7 million allocated to the county by about $1.2 million.

So the County Board will decide who gets what in the final analysis, as it has done throughout the process.

The largest amount of funding will stay with the county as it reimburses its general fund with $703,000 of the ARPA funds going to replace dollars spent by the county in COVID-related expenses from March 2020 to July 2022.

The county was eligible for reimbursement of the purchase of personal protective equipment, overtime for workers who manned testing and vaccination sites and rental costs of the locations where the large-scale operations were held.

The County Board also approved:

• $350,000 for a water tower replacement in Payson, which will cost a total of about $1 million.
• $200,000 for water main replacements in Clayton.
• $225,000 to the Clayton-Camp Point Water District for a water tower replacement. The total cost of this project is $780,000.
• $18,000 for new courtroom computers.
• $250,000 to the Adams County Fair Board for replacement of a restroom and water mains at the Adams County Fairgrounds. The Fair Board had already received $170,000 to cover losses incurred by not having a fair in 2020 due to the pandemic.

The County Board also approved cost of living adjustments for the salaries of Adams County State’s Attorney and the Adams County Chief Public Defender.

State’s Attorney Gary Farha will receive $188,753 and Chief Public Defender Todd Nelson will receive $169,878 effective immediately.

The state reimburses 90 percent of the state’s attorney’s salary. The state mandates the chief public defender be paid 90 percent of what the state’s attorney makes and the state then reimburses the county 80 percent of that salary.

The 2.9 percent raises were classified as “cost-of-living increases” by Finance Committee Chair Bret Austin.