Here's how Killingly plans to spend $1.8 million in federal ARPA money.

KILLINGLY – After months of research and discussion, the Town Council this week approved spending $1.8 million in federal pandemic relief funding for a series of municipal and community projects.

The council’s unanimous vote on Tuesday clears the way for Town Manager Mary Calorio to begin allocating a large chunk of the $3.9 million in American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, funding the town received.

Seven projects and organizations will split the approved funding, with the largest amounts set aside for town-related items, including $800,000 for the eventual relocation of the town’s constabulary from its current town hall offices into a new space outside the building.

Another $795,500 is earmarked for a sewer replacement project on Reynolds Street and $155,000 is destined for use for a Phase II environmental clean-up assessment of a 10-acre town-owned parcel at the industrial park.

The remaining funds were split among four community groups that submitted funding applications: $21,000 for window replacement work at the Access Agency; $4,700 for HVAC reimbursement for the Quinebaug Valley Senior Center; $20,000 for facility improvement for the Thames Valley Council for Community Action, or TVCCA; and $7,500 for an organizational study for The Arc Eastern Connecticut.

“We’ll be in contact with those groups and have them review and execute a sub-grantee agreement that states they will comply with any and all grant requirements,” Calorio said.

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Deborah Monahan, executive director of the TVCCA, a nonprofit group that serves economically disadvantaged residents across Eastern Connecticut, said Killingly’s funding will help pay down the cost of upgrades to the agency’s commissary in Bozrah.

“During the height of the pandemic, when senior centers were shut down and older residents stayed home, we saw a 40% increase in requests for our meals-on-wheels home delivery service,” Monahan said. “At the end of 2020 we embarked on upgrading and updating our commissary’s refrigeration system at a cost of $450,000.”

In order to get the work done in one fell swoop, the group took out a $300,000 “mortgage” for the project and asked towns to help with repayments.

“Our requests to towns were based on how many meals we delivered to a particular town with no higher request made than $20,000 and some for $2,000,” Monahan said. “We completed the project and, God forbid, if something happens again, we’re in a really good position to provide for our clients.”

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$2.1 million in ARPA funds remain to be spent

The council's vote still leaves roughly $2.1 million in ARPA funding to be spent. Calorio said three potential big-ticket allotments are still being researched, including funding for a regional emergency storage facility, a volunteer fire department radio upgrade project and funding related to the cost of moving the community center.

Voters last year approved bonding up to $28 million for the community center project, which would shift from its Broad Street location to the Westfield Avenue building currently home to the school district’s administrative offices and EASTCONN classrooms.

Calorio said roughly $1.2 million would be left from the town’s federal funding pool to help reduce the town’s debt burden for the work – if all the other proposed ARPA projects are funded fully. That amount is far less than the $2.1 million council members at one point hoped to draw on.

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“But the council can adjust other allocations and consider putting more money into another project,” Calorio said.

Two other applications, $50,000 requests each from United Services, Inc. and the Windham 4H group, are not yet set down for public hearing discussions, though representatives from both agencies made funding pitches to the council.

Calorio said she expects to bring a smaller grouping of funding requests to the council in the fall that will include the fire department radio proposal and the Windham 4H and United Services plans.

“It could be up to a year before the other proposals, like the community center, are brought forward for approval,” she said.

John Penney can be reached at jpenney@norwichbulletin.com or at (860) 857-6965

This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Killingly council approves first round of federal COVID-19 spending