Nearly $1.2 Million in American Rescue Plan Act-funded grants were approved by the Knox County Board Wednesday night.
A large portion of the money was part of a $1.5 Million fund that had been established by the county last year for community grants — part of a much bigger $4.5 Million chunk the county received from ARPA.
A task force was set up last year that was made up of community members and members of the county board to determine how to spend the money says David Amor Vice-Chair of the county’s Finance Committee.
“Among the early decisions we made was that we wanted some of these dollars to be put into community grants. The board set up a community advisory task force that was made up of both board members and members of the community to advise the [county] board on both community events and other expenditures from the ARPA funds.”
Amor told the board that the task force met for several months to go through all the applications and documentation.
“We received about 30 applications for community grants total for about $5 million in requests. The board had previously set a recommendation of about a million-and-a-half for those grants, so we’ve been working through those.”
He also told the board that the grant approved last night would not be the last of the grants to be awarded from the ARPA funds.
The grants are conditional and require either contracts or intergovernmental agreements between the county and each entity receiving funds.
