Federal funds to prop up mental health, workforce training, government projects
Roughly $385 million will go to projects throughout Wyoming. Albany County Rep. Trey Sherwood urged residents to stay involved in the process, as communities across the state compete for grants.
In the final week of its 2022 budget session, the Wyoming Legislature passed a bill deciding the fate of some $385 million in American Rescue Plan funds.
With a signature from Gov. Mark Gordon just a few days later, the money can start making its way to workforce services, mental health providers, broadband connectivity programs, and other government or community projects in towns and cities across the state.
Albany County Rep. Trey Sherwood (HD-14) said it’s a lot of money going to a lot of good projects.
“The thing I’m most proud of is that, across the aisle, there was a general sense of prioritizing people, and really thinking about how we give our Wyoming residents the tools they need, the leg up that they need, to be successful moving forward,” Sherwood said. “We prioritized things like workforce development. We need more healthcare workers, we need more people trained in early childhood education, we need to help energy workers transition – still within the energy sector, but maybe moving from oil and gas to renewables.”
The funding is only a segment of the ARPA funds Wyoming received, which is itself only part of the enormous pool of federal dollars funneled into Wyoming during the pandemic.
Wyoming received $1.25 billion through the CARES Act in 2020, in the first months of the pandemic.
“We had the CARES funds, and those were meant to be dispersed rather quickly and so what most people might remember is the money that went out through the Wyoming Business Council to keep our small businesses afloat,” Sherwood said. “And then the American Rescue Plan Act was the second round of pandemic relief. But we have more time to use it, essentially a five-year period.”
In total, Wyoming received $1.07 billion from the American Rescue Plan, starting in 2021. Gov. Gordon announced his “Survive, Drive, Thrive” plan that committed those funds first to fortifying public health infrastructure and responding directly to the pandemic, and then to addressing issues that have been facing Wyoming since before the pandemic.
The first priority, Sherwood said, was to stop the bleeding. Money distributed last year is already being used to assist local organizations and government projects in Albany County. The money also helped Wyoming avoid statewide budget cuts.
“Within the rules that came through from the federal government, we could replace funds in the Department of Health, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Transportation,” Sherwood said. “We were essentially able to pull American Rescue Plan funds, and conserve general funds to the tune of about $585 million. So, even though our revenue was down and our budget was actually smaller than it’s been, we didn’t have to go through another round of cuts because we were able to supplement our general fund with American Rescue Plan funds.”
The new bill directs $385 million to various efforts across the state.
About $10 million will go toward workforce services — funding and incentivizing training in healthcare and early childhood education. Some of the $10 million will also go toward encouraging Wyoming ex-pats to return and start careers here — an attempt to slow or reverse Wyoming’s infamous “brain drain.”
More than $15 million will go to healthcare services, with the bulk being spent on mental healthcare. Of that figure, $7 million will fund grants for mental health centers and women’s substance abuse treatment facilities. Another $5 million will be available to rural healthcare centers. Other funds will back mental health provider training, mental healthcare for first responders and a 24/7 suicide hotline.
“We know how poorly Wyoming ranks in terms of suicide,” Sherwood said. “And then the pandemic just exacerbated our mental health needs.”
The Wyoming Business Council’s “Connect Wyoming” program will receive $25 million for matching grants that increase high-speed access.
“Quite a lot of funding was set aside for grants to expand broadband,” Sherwood said. “So, really thinking about the rural communities we haven’t reached yet, and the services that are needed for working from home or for our businesses.”
The Wyoming Department of Transportation will receive $35 million to upgrade and fortify its communication infrastructure, which is important for emergency response.
“We’re making sure we don’t have pockets in our state that are ‘dead zones,’” Sherwood said.
The ARPA bill supports various other projects, which are listed in the bill’s final version.
But the largest pool of money will be available to local governments in the form of grants. $50 million will be available for projects addressing the public health emergency and its economic impacts, while another $50 million will be available for water and wastewater projects.
Sherwood said she was excited to see so much set aside for local communities at a time when many are struggling.
“We’ll be able to pull out strategic plans, or goals that we wanted to address, and use this to move the needle on some of those projects,” she said.
But those grants will still have to be awarded, and communities throughout Wyoming will be competing against each other for finite funds. Sherwood urged Albany County residents to stay involved with the process and advocate for their community’s needs.
“Even though these funds have been allocated at the state level, it really will be your local community partners who are applying for them, or creating applications to get this money used on the ground,” she said. “So, we’re not done. We still have to get this money out to our communities.”
Sherwood fought for additional funding for ‘gap projects,’ and even had the governor’s backing, but that funding was ultimately not included in the final ARPA bill.
‘Gap’ projects are those that initially received grant funding through the Wyoming Business Council and were approved at the state level, but then saw the price of goods skyrocket during the pandemic due to workforce shortages and supply chain issues. Many of those projects are now left unable to be completed.
“There’s a gap in terms of what was funded and what’s still needed,” Sherwood said. “We have about 10 projects across the state that are just kind of stuck.”
Those projects include the expansion and remodel of Laramie Interfaith in Albany County.
“The governor recommended using American Rescue Plan funds to cover that gap,” Sherwood said. “And I was just very disappointed that our members on the joint appropriations committee didn’t prioritize that, didn’t see it as something that we should use the American Rescue Plan funds for.”