The Griffith Town Council appropriated $500,000 in unspent American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds at last week’s meeting to cover town employee payroll for the next two pay cycles.
“If we didn’t have it (ARPA funds), we wouldn’t have had payroll,” Councilman Jim Marker, R-1st, told the Post-Tribune.
Clerk-Treasurer Gina Smith said that excess funds remained following the Redar Road water line extension project and replacing all residential water meters in town, which were paid for out of American Rescue Plan funds. The Town Council opted to allocate the money from its Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund toward payroll rather than fund another public improvement project.
Smith indicated that the payroll allocation was something out of her hands.
“That is what the council decided to do with that,” she said. “All I do is follow their ordinances.”
In 2022, the town spent approximately $700,000 on architectural design plans and land acquisition for a new town hall/police station facility. However, town officials later determined that the construction costs would be too high — in the range of $11 million to $12 million — and shelved the project for the foreseeable future.
Griffith is also funding, via a bond issue, approximately $1.1 million in upgrades to Central Park this year.
The current work includes new fencing and water hookups, replacement of the pavilion’s wooden structural beams with brick, installation of handicapped accessible bathrooms, replacement of the asphalt pathway through the park with one made of cement, and mitigation of drainage issues. Phase one of the Central Park project during 2022 included construction of a pavilion and patio, as well as an entrance area with signage at the northeast corner of the park.
Accordingly, the Town Council on May 1 approved an $1,644 change order for landscaping, opting for sod over seed, according to Smith.
Jim Masters is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
