Approximately 75 entities are poised to collectively receive $60 million of Luzerne County’s federal American Rescue Plan funding, according to plans county council discussed this week.
Council members individually screened and scored the 139 outside applications through an online portal created by the county’s American Rescue consultant and have not yet received a list with the names of entities expected to receive funding.
Before that list can be generated, council must first publicly vote on the parameters that will be used as the final determination on which make the cut, council members said.
Initially council set a 60-point preliminary threshold for requests to receive the earmarked funding.
However, only 24 projects with $12.3 million in eligible requests achieved that target, according to a chart Booth Management Consulting presented to council Tuesday.
The average score was 37 points based on evaluation factors such as a project’s impact on county priorities, community outcomes, racial equity and inclusion and a review of the overall project budget, the presentation said. The maximum possible score was 75 points.
As a result, council plans to reduce the acceptable score to 47 points, which will allow the awarding of $59.9 million to 75 entities.
Council agreed to approve the scoring change and other updated parameters at its next meeting Jan. 24. For example, council intends to approve a stipulation that entities can only receive one award. A few applicants submitted more than one request, but council members don’t know if any in the top 75 had more than one.
Based on feedback from council colleagues about getting the money to recipients as soon as possible, council Chairwoman Kendra Radle said the plan for now is that council also will vote on the awards Jan. 24.
Radle stressed this plan is tentative and subject to change.
In order to approve both parameters and awards at the same meeting, Radle said council wouldn’t receive the final list of recipients from Booth Consulting until it approves the latest parameters during the meeting. If a list is compiled and released to council — and thus, the public — in advance, it could be incorrect if the anticipated parameters are changed or not approved, Radle said, noting the county law office has weighed in on the tentative plan.
Although this approach might typically raise questions about how council can vote without contemplating the list in advance, Radle said council must stick to the completed rankings regardless. The determination was entirely based on council’s independent scoring and cannot be altered without compromising the process council set up to evaluate applicants without bias or outside intervention, she said.
Council has approximately $94.3 million in remaining American Rescue funding not earmarked for projects. In addition to the $60 million set aside for outside awards, council has retained $17.9 million for possible allocation to county government projects.
The Columbia, Maryland-based Booth is serving as the county’s American Rescue consultant to prevent auditing and compliance issues later on. Company head Robin Booth reiterated this week that there were originally 141 outside applicants for the funding, but two were eliminated from consideration because they did not submit all required information as requested.
County Acting Manager Brian Swetz told council members their plan to alter the parameters means more than 53% of outside applicants will receive full funding within eligibility guidelines to complete their projects.
Under the planned schedule, approved recipients must complete grant execution packages by Feb. 27.