Will ARPA funding go to those most in need and those who serve them?

Two legislative interim committees are looking at how to spend over $1 billion of pandemic aid from the federal American Rescue Plan Act(ARPA). The full legislative assembly will consider the committees’ proposal when it reconvenes on November 8.

The pandemic has impacted a wide spectrum of human service needs, including child care, mental health, disability services, abortion alternative programs, long-term care, and our hospitals. The skewed economic situation has also made it difficult for the state’s care providers, such as the state hospital and human service centers, to retain needed essential workers.

Despite the need and its relation to the pandemic, the committees devoted only a short time to human service issues and some seem unwilling to give them the priority called for. One legislator groused that the committee was spending an “awful lot of time on human service stuff.”

In fact, only 16 of the 117 requests for using the ARPA funds concerned the Department of Human Services. Of all the money requested, only 2% was for human service needs and some of those requests were duplicative.