Gila County received $10.5M for a long list of projects under the American Rescue Plan Act, but little of that money is going to local contractors.
In a Jan. 30 meeting, the Board of Supervisors was told the County has spent $9.1M of its allocated funds. Meeting the federal requirements proved challenging for County staff, who had to plan the projects, award the projects and get payment set up on a fast schedule.
Those federal requirements, however, are one of the reasons little of the money is going to local contractors, since few are on the federal list of qualified bidders, even for projects as small as a $5K contract to plan sound system adjustments and acoustic tile replacement in the Payson courtroom.
Even when contractors based inside the county might qualify, few actually bid.
Supervisors expressed disappointment with the process, with Supervisor Woody Cline wondering why involvement was so low. He said the County used to hold talks with local contractors to discuss projects and bidding. He wondered what the reasons could be for the ongoing lack of participation and questioned if it could be issues with payment timelines, the amount of paperwork involved or other issues. He said it would be useful to find out the reasons.
In addition to discussing the problems with local contractors and keeping the payouts in the county, the Supervisors also received status updates on the long list of ARPA projects, ranging from the recently completed $2M digitization of County records and $1.5M in improvements to the County Fairgrounds out to the still ongoing $10K process of planning a fence around the Star Valley maintenance yard. (Source)