Census tract limits Swain’s options for ARP spending

BY JESSI STONE NEWS EDITOR

Swain County Board of Commissioners voted to spend its American Rescue Plan allocation on pay for employees since a guideline regarding “qualified census tracts” limits the county’s ability to put the money toward infrastructure projects.

Swain County Manager Kevin King said the ARP guidelines say that the population of an area has to be disproportionately affected by the pandemic and the criteria for deciding that is by having a qualified census tract.

“They (the Department of Treasury) look at a county’s population density and minority groups in the area — that’s a qualified census tract and we don’t have one,” he said. “It puts a lot of counties at a disadvantage.”

Not that Swain’s allocation — $2.77 million — would have gone far toward any major infrastructure projects like expanding water/sewer or broadband, which is why Swain followed suit with Macon County by increasing pay for its employees instead.

“We’re doing what Macon and lot of other counties are doing by offering premium pay,” King said. “It’s hard with the amount of money we got, we couldn’t get into the assistance programs for sewer and water. We wanted to look at the Ela area, but we knew we couldn’t qualify because of the way the law is currently written.”

Improving pay for employees seemed a safer route, especially since the county has also struggled to recruit and retain employees the last few years. Just like Macon County, Swain continued to lose public health and public safety employees to surrounding agencies that could offer more competitive pay.

Commissioners approved offering $1.50 more an hour for three years for full-time employees up to 40 hours a week. Similar to Macon, that premium pay will be retroactive back to March when ARP was passed. “I think this will make the county more marketable,” King said. “If they would go back and look at changing the requirements

it might be different, but right now we don’t feel comfortable spending the money on anything else. I think we did the right thing.”

King said he was hopeful other money would become available specifically for infrastructure projects. The North Carolina state budget that recently passed included some funding for Swain County projects, including $50,000 for improvements at Alarka Community Center; $250,000 for improvements to the county fairgrounds and $100,000 to replace the HVAC system at the county recreation center.

King said Swain as well as Haywood County is expecting to get additional funds from the federal PILT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) program this year. The PILT program provides payments to counties and other local governments to offset losses in tax revenues due to the presence of substantial federal land acreage within their jurisdictions.

King said Swain could end up seeing $1 million a year in additional PILT funds since Swain is 85 percent occupied by federally owned land.

ARP IN WNC

Bryson City approves one-time bonuses

Bryson City Council approved premium pay for 32 employees during a Dec. 6 board of aldermen meeting.

Town Manager Regina Mathis said the board approved giving employees a one-time $1,500 bonus, though a few newer employees’ bonus will be prorated for the time they’ve been on the job. Employees will receive their bonuses before Christmas. The bonuses will cost the town $41,475 of its $420,000 ARP funds.

“We’ve been working on pay increases for our employees for five or six years and I think we’re doing pretty well,” said Mayor Tom Sutton. “That’s not something we’re walking away from now either. We’ll continue to make adjustments as we go. We raised our starting pay to $13 an hour but that had nothing to do with this money.”

Sutton is hopeful the rest of the money can be put toward water and sewer infrastructure projects — a top priority for the town. Bryson City is currently under a water and sewer moratorium for any new service until it can get a handle on its inflow and infiltration issues at the water and sewer plant.

“We’re getting a USDA loan/grant, but when we talked to them about a new sewer plant, they said we’re treating a lot of water through old pipes and so they’re not allowing a new plant until we address the inflow and infiltration issues,” Mathis said.

The USDA will provide a $6.2 million loan and the rest will be granted to start that project. The town also has a $1.5 million Community Block Development Grant to replace sewer lines on Carringer Street.

Mathis said she’s been sitting through numerous American Rescue Plan meetings to stay up to date on all the guidelines and any changes that could be coming in the future.

“From what I’ve heard, we can still spend the money on infrastructure but we have to target low to moderate income households, so I don’t think we’re tied down yet because of the census tract, but we will have to check on that to be sure.”

We are open to continue providing essential services to our patients in a safe environment. Our staff is following protocol recommended by the CDC and local and state health departments.

ACCEPTING NEW PATIENTS

Call Us to Make an Appointment Today.

289 Access Road, Waynesville 452 4343 32 Asheville Hwy, Sylva 586 8950 188 Georgia Road, Franklin 349 4534 49 McDowell Street, Asheville 254 7716 35 NC Hwy 141, Murphy 835 8389

Dr. William Banks Dr. Robert DelBene Dr. Robert Przynosch