LEWES, Del. - Funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for the City of Lewes are running out. This funding plays a large role in maintaining the city's infrastructure.
Projects like the Lewes Wastewater Treatment Plant and water pumps are just two projects that the Lewes Board of Public Works (BPW) has been granted ARPA funding for.
"We're the First Town in the First State so obviously aging infrastructure and so taking that money and investing back into our pump stations - right now we're scheduled to do half a million dollars this year in pump station renewals and so having nearly an extra million dollars helps." said Lewes BPW General Manager Austin Calaman.
At the City of Lewes' last budget meeting, a proposed lower budget is the result of running low on ARPA funds, funding that began in June 2021. Lewes City Manager Ann Marie Townshend says the money was never allocated in a way that would affect day to day operations for the City, "The budget from fiscal year 2023, which will end at the end of March, included the ARPA funds for both years. So with the ARPA funds we expect that most of that will have been dispersed by then and is not built into the budget for next fiscal year."
Lewes BPW is getting creative to earn funding to fuel these initiatives in the future, "So for us, we're even utilizing the University of Delaware to help with possibly doing some grant writing so we're looking and exploring in all of these different avenues to see what fits for us."
The next Lewes Budget Workshop will be this Friday at 9 a.m. here.