City Approved for Over $8 Million in State ARPA Funds
The City of Great Falls was approved for $8,431,368.00 in Minimum Allocation Grants (MAG) by the State of Montana. The MAG program was created to fund eligible wastewater, stormwater, and drinking water infrastructure expenses with a portion of the State’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation.
“The approval of almost $8.5 million in grant funds for public works is great news for the citizens of Great Falls,” stated Public Works Director Christoff Gaub. “This funding helps us keep our public infrastructure capital improvement program healthy, mitigates the effects of inflation on the surging costs of capital improvement projects, and provides our citizens with dependable water and sewer infrastructure systems now and in the future.”
Two of the City’s MAG applications requested that funds be used to satisfy the City’s required contribution, or match, to two projects that were awarded through the Montana ARPA Competitive Grants in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, the City received a $2 million Competitive Grant for a wastewater project to improve and reinforce the infrastructure that transports sewage across the Missouri River. The City will use $3.8 million of the MAG funds to satisfy a substantial portion of its required contribution. Then in 2022, the City was awarded $1.8 million for a project to increase the stormwater drainage capacity in the downtown area. The City will satisfy its entire $1.8 million match commitment with MAG dollars.
In total, the City will use $9,583,785.00 of ARPA funds awarded by the State in these two local stormwater and wastewater improvement projects.
Additionally, the City submitted five applications requesting reimbursement for $2,712,183.00 spent on previous infrastructure projects. The City will apportion these dollars to current and future infrastructure investments.
Original source can be found here.
