Organizations and governmental units hoping for a slice of what remains from $135 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds allocated to Lake County — including proponents of plans to build a mental health center for first responders and veterans — will have to wait to a little longer to find out the fate of their funding.
Members of the Lake County Board’s Special Committee on COVID-19 Pandemic Recovery and Investment are intent on ensuring that every last ARPA dollar in Lake County’s control is allocated before the end of 2024 in accordance with federal requirements.
But timelines to complete the proposed projects will shrink, at least somewhat, after the committee on Friday instructed a consultant to add an additional equity metric to its proposal evaluations that would assess whether projects will serve “historically disinvested communities,” as opposed to “communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic,” as laid out in the U.S. Treasury’s ARPA spending guidelines.
Applicants are starting to feel a time crunch because all the federal dollars must be spent by the end of 2026, and the majority of the projects’ fates hinge on receiving the funds.
Remaining in the dark about how many points projects are making or missing the cut by ensures that board members did not know exactly how the adjustment will impact the project recommendations. But that didn’t keep project proponents from urging board members to look kindly upon their applications on Friday.
Former Round Lake Park police chief and Nicasa Behavioral Health Services executive director Bruce Johnson said that first responders and veterans in Lake County have a “really large need” for specialized mental health care.
Nicasa Behavioral Health Services is the applicant and is seeking about $2.4 million for the project.
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“Unfortunately, as mental health (treatment) has become somewhat normalized for the public, it has not become normalized for veterans and first responders,” Johnson said.
Gail Weil, the executive director of the Community Youth Network Counseling Center, urged board members to support a Lake County wellness campus project that was not recommended in the consultant’s evaluations. She said the organization would need significantly less money allocated because it had identified an alternate building site.
“Frankly, I’m disappointed and a little bit confused as to why CYN keeps ending up on the bottom of the pile in terms of recommendations for these projects, especially since this project checks every box of everything you said you wanted to fund with this money,” Weil said.
The Community Youth Network’s Counseling Center’s initial request was for about $5.8 million.
Many of the proposed projects, which range from addiction treatment centers, family safety and legal planning support, mental and behavior health programs and building maintenance, are planned on multiyear timelines. Projects will now be weighed against each other on a 105-point scale instead of being scored out of 100 points.
The committee’s decision could tip the scales in favor of certain projects, or none at all, as board members received a list of the currently recommended projects, but are unaware of their exact scores.
Ultimately, committee chair Paul Frank, D-Highland Park, directed county staff to have Bronner Group, the consultant, add the additional equity factor, which will mean that the equity score makes up 10 out of 105 points, rather than five out of 100.
The committee initially set the equity metric at 10% of the score, though it will be slightly less than that in the new form.
Committee vice chair Michael Danforth, R-Fox River Grove, and Linda Pedersen, R-Antioch, both expressed support for moving on with the current list of recommendations, in concurrence with Carissa Casbon, D-Gurnee, Esiah Campos, D-Round Lake Beach and John Wasik, D-Grayslake, who are not on the committee.
“My concern is that if you’re talking about equity, I think you could easily say that for instance, vets and first responders, have been generationally, disproportionately disenfranchised,” Casbon said. “After 9/11, it took how long to get the funding. After 9/11, it took how long to get the funding to take care of those firefighters? (First responders) were also disproportionately affected by COVID.”
But committee member Jessica Vealitzek, D-Hawthorn Woods, and Lake County Board Chair Sandy Hart, D-Lake Bluff, laid out arguments in favor of going back and adding five more equity points.
“What do we value?” Hart asked the committee. “That matters. I would just urge us not to look at projects, but think about what we care about as a government. Do we want to help people who have nowhere else to turn; who for years have not gotten the resources that they deserve, except for some little bits?”
Pedersen and Campos both urged the committee to keep the current list, and Campos compared adjusting the scoring metrics to board members forming a, “custom list that we like personally.”
“Bronner group did an excellent job I think, and I think moving the goal posts doesn’t really serve the end result,” Campos said.
Hart and Vealitzek pushed back that the board members calling to readjust the metrics based on a project’s impact on historically disinvested communities was not about specific projects, but about completing the evaluations as initially intended, with equity as a significant factor.
“I hear people talking about specific projects,” Hart said. “I urge people not to think about specific projects, but whether or not equity matters to you when you’re thinking about dollars to give out.”
Hart said she thought the equity metric should have actually been 20% of the scoring.
Mary Ross Cunningham, D-Waukegan, expressed reservations that some applicants had multiple projects included among the recommendations.
Committee member Angelo Kyle, D-Waukegan, was absent Friday.