Federal Resources Collaboration Lab

The Local Government ARPA Investment Tracker, a project of Brookings Metro, the National League of Cities, and the National Association of Counties, is a fantastic tool that tracks, organizes, and shares data on how 329 local governments – cities and counties with populations over 250,000 – are spending and allocating State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, a program of the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Ohio cities that are included in the data are:

• Cincinnati
• Cleveland
• Columbus
• Toledo

The data is currently updated through December 31, 2021 (the U.S. Department of Treasury is releasing data from cities’ reports more slowly than it is receiving it). We expect that the data for the first quarter of 2022, through March 31, 2022, will be added to the tracker soon and will show that a lot of cities, including Ohio’s, have allocated and spent much more of their funds in 2022.

The Ohio Mayors Alliance is working on compiling data on State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds allocations and spending for all 30 of its member cities in the coming months. Stay tuned for more information!

Bloomberg Philanthropies, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and several other partners officially launched the Local Infrastructure Hub earlier this week with a webinar focusing on describing the hub’s resources and assistance opportunities for cities under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)/Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We are excited about this collective effort to make sure all cities have the information and capacity to compete for the billions of dollars in infrastructure grants made possible by the law in the coming years. Weekly information webinars and other events will walk mayors and city staff through different grant opportunities and topics, and will give us a perfect opportunity to take notes and then discuss and strategize via the Federal Resources Collaboration Lab.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb published an op-ed at cleveland.com last weekend detailing his administration’s plans for the city’s remaining ARPA funds, which total over $400 million. Mayor Bibb’s plans reflect the diversity of needs in Cleveland and a focus on developing and implementing a vision for how Cleveland can be and do better for all of its residents. As the mayor said, “we are not talking about spending ARPA dollars on one-off projects and programs. Such a list would be endless and, after three years, we would find ourselves in the same place we started. Instead, we need transformational strategies that can reverse decades of decline and disinvestment, improve residents’ quality of life, address economic and social disparities and enhance our competitiveness.”

Cleveland’s plans include funding for affordable housing, violence prevention and public safety, closing the digital divide, enhancing City Hall’s communications and engagement with Clevelanders, improving education options, remediating lead in all housing, arts and neighborhoods, equity, and opportunities for neighborhoods and communities to request funding for grassroots-led projects. Read more about Mayor Bibb’s plans: Mayor Bibb’s Rescue and Transformation Plan.

The City of Cleveland is one of three cities nationally participating in the Brookings Metro Transforming Cities Lab, which provides support and assistance to cities to maximize the use of these one-time federal funds to ensure that the opportunities for innovation and progress they provide aren’t missed because cities don’t have the civic capacity to make the best use of them.

OMA and the Federal Resources Collaboration Lab are experimenting with the best ways to share information about currently open federal grant programs available to cities via the IIJA/bipartisan infrastructure law. The good news is that we are not the only entities thinking about this issue, and we will continue to seek out ways to collaborate and share best practices and ideas for how to support our cities. In the meantime, however, we have created a very simple spreadsheet of open grant programs, which will be updated regularly, with basic info and links to more info on grant programs. Check out the Google spreadsheet here and reach out to Sarah Biehl at sarah@ohiomayorsalliance.org if you have comments or questions.

The Ohio Mayors Alliance has created this page as part of its new initiative, the Federal Resources Collaboration Lab, which will help leverage state and federal resources for Ohio’s cities. This initiative also includes the formation of a working group of mayors to collaborate on how to best utilize state and federal funds and a customized grants navigator for OMA member-cities.

The Collaboration Lab has convened a group of mayors and city administration officials to meet regularly and share their ideas and plans for federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) funds and competitive grants, and other state and federal grant programs. This group will work together to share knowledge and resources to identify economies of scale in maximizing their ARPA and IIJA dollars.

OMA mayors will also be able to use a customized Grants Navigator to get help identifying projects and plans that may qualify for the influx of federal and state grants arising out of the federal government’s historic investments in COVID-19 recovery, local governments, and public infrastructure. This work will be focused on ensuring that Ohio’s cities don’t miss out on crucial infrastructure funds as new grant programs roll out.

Ohio Mayors Alliance cities have received half of the over $1.5 billion in ARPA State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds they have been allocated by the 2021 law, and will receive the second half this summer. OMA highlighted how cities have allocated funds in the January 2022 report, “How the American Rescue Plan is Supporting Economic Recovery in Ohio Cities.”

The federal government has already begun posting funding opportunities for both new and expanded grants over multiple federal agencies as part of the IIJA–the bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress late last year–and will continue to distribute funds to both state and local governments over the next several years. It is crucial that Ohio cities start planning now to ensure that they are well positioned to compete for and win federal grants.

OMA will be periodically posting new and updated information about how OMA cities are spending ARPA and other federal funds on this page.