With the deadline to spend the funds approaching at the end of 2026, the Kane County Board is continuing to reallocate its remaining COVID-19 relief money to county projects.
Several transfers approved Tuesday at the board’s regular meeting total over $600,000 and direct funds toward projects in building management, IT and the State’s Attorney’s Office.
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, commonly called ARPA, was signed into law by former President Joe Biden in 2021, with the goal of helping the United States deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and help out the economy. Part of that relief package was a $350 billion program to distribute aid to state and local governments, meant to support their response to and recovery from the pandemic.
Local entities nationwide had until the end of 2024 to allocate the ARPA funds they received, according to the Treasury Department. The funds can be spent through the end of 2026, but can only go toward projects or services authorized before Dec. 31, 2024.
Kane County received about $103 million in total, and in the years since has pursued a variety of programs and capital projects.
Reallocations of the funds the county has left are essentially transfers from one county project to another. When funds are available because a different project came in under the amount it had been allotted, the county is able to move those funds to another project.
The county has made several such transfers in recent months.
Approved Tuesday as part of the meeting’s consent agenda were transfers topping $600,000.
One of the measures will transfer $200,000 from a 16th Judicial Circuit Court technology modernization project to an access control project in the county’s Building Management Department. According to the county, the former project, which was slated to use a little over $3 million in pandemic funds, is coming in under budget.
The county will also be transferring another $263,473 away from the same court technology modernization project to an Information Technology Department public safety radio network project.
In Kane County, the KaneComm and Tri-Com Central Dispatch 911 agencies are responsible for maintaining a public safety radio network, which includes a mutual aid radio frequency capability for both fire and police departments, according to the county. This IT project, initially slated to get more than $1.4 million in COVID-19 relief funds, includes microwave radio and fiber link infrastructure.
Another transfer authorizes the reprogramming of $153,523 from a project with the county’s Child Advocacy Center to a State’s Attorney’s Office project.
The Child Advocacy Center project was authorized to get nearly $800,000 in COVID-19 relief funds to help provide counseling and mental health services to children and families who have been victims of crimes against children, but it is being completed under budget, per the county. The State’s Attorney’s Office project, originally slated to get around $355,000 in COVID-19 relief funds, was meant to help reduce backlogs in the court system during the pandemic by allowing for the hiring of more felony case managers.
Lastly, following board approval on Tuesday, another $29,599 is being allocated away from the Child Advocacy Center project to a different COVID-era State’s Attorney’s Office project that, per county documents, entailed the hiring of an additional domestic violence case manager and a domestic violence administrative assistant to deal with the influx of domestic violence cases seen during the pandemic.
Also on Tuesday, the board approved amendments to several agreements related to other ARPA projects.
Around $22 million of the county’s federal pandemic funds remained to be spent as of early 2026, per the county. That money includes project savings or unspent awards and is to be reallocated within existing agreements.
The Associated Press contributed.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
