STARKVILLE — The plan to allocate the majority of Starkville’s American Rescue Plan Act funds to park improvements may be changing.

The board of aldermen approved an expansion of allowable expenditures for the city’s ARPA funds at the board’s work session Friday to include the BUILD grant Highway 182 infrastructure project and Main Street improvements.

After a final ruling from the federal government allowing ARPA to be spent on broadband and infrastructure improvements without the need of those projects falling in an “underserved” community, Mayor Lynn Spruill said she wants to outline multiple projects that the city’s funds could be spent on aside from just the original park improvement plan. Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has said he intends to have a state matching program for ARPA funds regarding local government projects, and Spruill said she wants to maximize the opportunity for the city to receive these matching funds.

“We had been fairly narrow when we (decided how to allocate funds), so this allows us to have a full opportunity for use of the funds that the final rule allows for,” Spruill said.

The city originally voted on Sept. 21 to allocate $5.5 million of the city’s $6.2 million in ARPA for improvements throughout all of the city’s parks and an additional two fields at the city’s new baseball/softball recreation complex, Cornerstone Park. The city allocated $500,000 for the hiring of two new officers to the Starkville Police Department and $200,000 to address water issues at the Northgate subdivision in Starkville.

Spruill said she still supports improving the city’s parks but wants to ensure the city can obtain the most amount of matching dollars possible, citing that the state legislature might prioritize projects relating to water, sewer, broadband and infrastructure, rather than parks and recreation.

“I still think our argument is excellent,” Spruill said. “It’s still within the final rule. It still makes perfect sense, but if the legislature only wants us to do X, then we can use that for those projects and do other things for other projects.”

Spruill said she plans to address the state legislature this week and present multiple projects to the delegates, including the current parks plan and the Highway 182 BUILD grant project and the Main Street project, which will both see improvements to the streets’ roads, sidewalks and sewer systems.

The BUILD grant project will make Highway 182 a more pedestrian-friendly and wheelchair-accessible streetscape, while increasing broadband access and improving infrastructure and stormwater drainage, through a $12.66 million federal grant funded by U.S. Department of Transportation’s Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development Transportation Discretionary Grant program.

Main Street has not been repaved in roughly 20 years, Spruill said in October, and with new repavement of the street that could begin as early as this year, Main Street would be compressed, eliminating turning lanes and expanding sidewalks to create a more pedestrian-friendly experience.

Spruill said she has no preference as to which project the legislature would potentially match because each is greatly important for the community.

“I want to make sure we had the absolute maximum opportunity to get matching funds from the state legislature, and while they may love parks, they may not love parks, and they may love the BUILD grant or may love doing the Main Street project, but I just want to make sure that whatever we can get from matching funds, we’ve got the maximum flexibility to do so,” Spruill said.

State Rep. Rob Roberson (R, Starkville) told The Dispatch the legislature is still deciding on how it wants to approach its matching program. He said Hosemann has set up a committee to evaluate the best solution for ARPA moving forward and said the legislature might also consider other possible means of awarding funds, such as bonds or regular appropriation distribution. 

“We’re basically going to take all of the projects that we want done and put all of them up with whatever funding source available, whether that be through bond money or through ARPA funding or through just regular appropriations,” Roberson said. “We’re basically going to do it in as many different ways, just in case things change.”

Ward 4 Alderman Mike Brooks said he has been observing Hosemann’s statements regarding his preference for ARPA projects, mentioning that Hosemann has been “hitting hard” on matching funds for infrastructure projects.

“Parks were never mentioned, so I think it’s a really good idea to broaden this because I feel like there would be a whole lot more similarity from the group for water, sewer, building roads, paving roads, any of that sort of stuff,” Brooks said.

Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty, who voted against allocating funds for park improvements, said he is a proponent of spending funds on water, sewer and infrastructure because cities continuously ask the federal government for money to fund these, and this ARPA money is a one-time opportunity to make a difference in Starkville.

“I think that we have this huge need for and expenses associated with replacing very old, aging and failing water, sewer and infrastructure in the city of Starkville,” Beatty told The Dispatch. “… I’m fine with expanding the scope of how we spend the money, but at the same time I think we should spend it on things that we need that are very expensive.”