County Approves Water Board Funding

BY HANNAH LESTER HLESTER@ OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM

LEE COUNTY —

The Lee County Commission voted to approve items related to the county’s American Rescue Plan Act funding Monday night.

“So, the [Investing in Alabama Counties program] is in the process of vetting for the eligibility water projects that you all allocated the total amount for back on August 29 of '22,” said county Administrator Holly

Leverette. “And as you’ll recall, on Nov. 28, we approved the guidelines that IAC would follow and the process we would follow for granting these projects to the different water authorities.

“So we’re going to go back and do the same thing we did with Beulah when we did theirs on Nov. 28. We went ahead and approved some of those. We have got four for Beauregard Water Authority, and Loachapoka Water Authority has three identified eligible projects that we need to go ahead and approve tonight.”

Water projects are only one outlet for ARPA funding that the county was awarded. Others include broadband, ventilation and community organization projects.

The commission also set a work session in place for ARPA funding on April 24 for commissioners to discuss how to spend the money and ask questions.

OTHER BUSINESS

- The commission heard from EMA Director Rita Smith on Senate Bill 22, which could lead to money

See COMMISSION, page B11