Poughkeepsie received a total of $20.8 million under the act, delivered in two equal tranches in 2021 and 2022. If you want to know where the money went, check out the city’s parks: roughly $9 million went into reviving outdoor spaces like Malcom X Park on the city’s North Side. The Pulaski Park pool is next, with $2.5 million in ARPA money going toward a new-and-improved pool house that’s expected to open next season.
Governments have until the end of next year to finalize their ARPA plans. According to the latest numbers from the Treasury Department, state governments have yet to allocate about 30 percent of their funds. They’ve only spent about half of it — and local governments have done even less. That has to happen by 2026. Dave Kamper, a senior state policy coordinator and analyst, has been watching the data for the Economic Policy Institute.
“State and local governments are not used to having this much unspecified money. And I think we’ve seen a lot of decision paralysis on the part of, especially, local governments — where they just have so many things they could spend the money on, that they’re having hard time deciding," says Kamper.
Outgoing Mayor Marc Nelson says that isn’t the case in Poughkeepsie: they’ve had no trouble allocating and spending the money.
“Our biggest message now is telling people, 'It's winding down,'" he adds. "And so we need the community to understand that, as we tighten our belts, some of these programs are coming to an end.”
The Democrat’s proposed 2024 budget, roughly $104.7 million, contains a final $1.5 million in ARPA funds — but now that most of the money is on its way out the door, Poughkeepsie is feeling the squeeze. To be clear, Nelson says the city wasn’t relying on ARPA to pay down debt or cover its operating expenses. Regardless, his budget includes a 6.3 percent property tax increase, requiring a tax cap override from the common council for the first time in nearly a decade.
At a public hearing earlier this week, Finance Commissioner Brian Martinez tied the tax increase to high inflation, rising pension costs, and the city’s still-recovering financial status. Poughkeepsie has been on the mend since experiencing a $13.2 million general fund deficit in 2016 — Martinez says the city finally has investment-grade bond ratings with a “positive outlook” from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, and he hopes to see the remainder of the fund deficit retired next year. But unlike nearby Newburgh or Middletown, Poughkeepsie doesn’t have a reserve fund to lean on for tax relief.
When it comes to ARPA, Martinez says the money primarily allowed the city to keep chasing projects as it nursed its finances.
“It gave us the opportunity to actuate some of the planning and dreaming, if you will, that we did in our capital planning process," he explains.
Under then-Mayor Rob Rolison in 2021, the city put together a task force of administration officials and common councilors to identify the city’s needs and divvy up the funds. In addition to reviving parks and pools, Nelson says ARPA allowed the city to purchase new equipment and vehicles for its fire, police, and public works departments. The city has allocated at least $300,000 to update its IT and cybersecurity infrastructure over the past two years, with an additional $120,000 set aside for next year.
City officials have especially touted the expansion of youth services under ARPA — things like summer camps, sports teams, after-school programs, and workforce development opportunities. Lawmakers point to the programs as a key way of keeping youth off the street, and preventing crime. Poughkeepsie first launched its youth grant program in 2018 with nearly $140,000 in funding, but ARPA has allowed that amount to grow to nearly $500,000.
The Art Effect, a youth-led gallery and arts school on Pershing Avenue, has received $100,000 from the city to renovate its space at the Poughkeepsie Trolley Barn, according to Executive Director Nicole Fenichel-Hewitt. She says another $15,000-$20,000 in ARPA funds have gone toward bolstering the Art Effect’s long-running workforce development program.
“We run four different programs after school, training young people in a whole variety of arts – everything from filmmaking, to developing public art projects, to curating a festival, to running a gallery," says Fenichel-Hewitt. "We’re advancing young people’s critical thinking and access to this creative bone in their body, but we’re also helping them build confidence, and at the heart of it, the program’s about social mobility.”
Youth Services Director Karen Williams says the city awarded grants to 37 youth programs this year. She’s still collecting reports on their performance, but as of October, with 27 programs reporting, Williams says more than 1,700 city youth have been served, most of them children of color.
“Overall, I think all the programs have done amazingly well this year," says Williams. "Everybody has done their part, and everyone has a passion for what they are doing.”
Nelson says one of the biggest pieces of advice he received during the allocation process was not to create “tails” — projects and positions that would require continued funding down the line. And admittedly, the youth program is a potential tail: next year’s budget plan uses ARPA to maintain the heightened grant funding and provide $175,000 to the Poughkeepsie Children’s Cabinet, but after that, it’s all on the city’s dime.
The long-term future of the spending drew a bit of scrutiny at this week’s budget hearing. City resident Brian Robinson asked the council for more transparency about where exactly the grants are going, and how the money is being spent.
"I've seen this so much in my 10 years here: good ideas, and then more and more money coming out of the people's pockets, who need it — in this case, the children — and going to outside people coming in and taking that money, and more and more administrative costs," said Robinson.
Williams says the youth programs have been told to anticipate less funding in the years to come, and plan accordingly. This week, she held a two-day seminar teaching program directors how to build and sustain a non-profit. She says the grants have always put an emphasis on collaboration, so most of the programs are in the habit of pooling resources and sharing experience.
Looking at next year, Williams says any new organizations applying for grants will need to fill a gap identified by her office. Williams says she specifically wants to find a way to reach students who are at risk of dropping out of school.
“Is there a way that we can collaborate to see the kids that are not showing up to school on time?" she wonders. "Is there a way that I can come in with my program and reach out to these kids, like case management?”
Another item in the budget that has drawn scrutiny is an updated memorandum of agreement reached between the city’s police benevolent association and Nelson’s office earlier this year. The contract would provide funding for officer recruitment and retention, but it has yet to get approval from the common council.
At a recent meeting, PBA President Kevin Van Wagner warned councilors the police department could lose a dangerous amount officers who are ready to retire, if the city doesn’t give them more of an incentive to stay — or at least an incentive to bring new officers in. But incoming Mayor Yvonne Flowers, who defeated Nelson in this year’s Democratic primary, questions whether it’s really a matter of money. Last year, the city allocated $600,000 in ARPA funding for “police recruitment,” according to its online ARPA portal, and Flowers says officers’ salaries and benefits were boosted within the past few years.
“The biggest concern is, is it going to work? We’ve done it about four years ago, we did a police retention plan. And now we’re back at square one again," she adds.
With ARPA now more or less in the rearview mirror, Nelson says he has advised Flowers to focus on improving the more “invisible” aspects of Poughkeepsie’s infrastructure, like its sewer system. He says there are some things they simply didn’t tackle with ARPA, and other projects that were postponed once inflation made them too expensive. The Spratt Park Pool, for example, was initially supposed to be renovated at the same time as the Pulaski pool house, but it's still in the design phase.
Perhaps most notably, none of the city’s ARPA funding has gone toward replacing lead service lines. Environmental advocates and residents have long voiced concerns that the city’s aging lead water pipes are poisonous, and the city received pushback from the group Environmental Advocates of New York over its replacement strategy earlier this year.
Nelson and Martinez say they didn’t broach the subject with ARPA because they’re hopeful that Poughkeepsie will receive a $10 million grant from the federal government for line replacement next year. Similarly, Nelson expects the city to receive a $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant to infuse its Main Street corridor. And as Poughkeepsie’s bond rating improves, they hope to be in a better place to borrow funds for big-ticket items.
"We're very proud of the choices that we've made, and I think they will stand the test of time," says Nelson. "I think we'll take a look around, and we'll see that there were real improvements made as a result of ARPA."
The Common Council needs to approve a budget by the end of the year. Its last regular meeting is scheduled for December 18.
