American Rescue Plan Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

State Grants Money To Tear Down Dilapidated Structures

Nearly 1,300 dilapidated properties are slated to be torn down across 69 communities in the state. This comes through the second phase of the state’s Reclamation of Abandoned and Dilapidated Properties Program.

Gov. Jim Justice and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced the funding Wednesday. It totals more than $15.6 million.

“These funds are helping move West Virginia in the right direction,” Justice said. “This funding provides the rocket boost needed to propel us forward, because we are tearing down what’s holding us back and making way for what’s to come.”

To determine which projects to fund, the DEP sent surveys to all 55 counties and to all incorporated municipalities in West Virginia. It received responses from 43 counties and 124 municipalities.

The funding will reimburse communities for expenses related to the demolition. The money for this program comes from the American Rescue Plan Act.

“This program is about more than just tearing down old buildings – it’s about building up our communities, making them safer, and preparing them for future productive use,” said DEP Cabinet Secretary Harold Ward. “We’re not just clearing away the old; we’re laying the foundation for the new.”

The DEP will administer the funding and is committed to providing technical assistance and support throughout the execution of these projects. Selected communities will have 12 months to spend their budgeted amount, with the possibility for a single six-month extension. No payments will be made until demolition work is completed and all required supportive documentation has been submitted.

The selected communities include:

Anmoore – $143,000
Beckley – $487,000
Belington – $39,000
Belmont – $39,000
Bluefield – $650,000
Cameron – $169,000
Charleston – $500,000
Chester – $195,000
Clarksburg – $390,000
Delbarton – $130,000
Dunbar – $73,400
Durbin – $78,000
Fairmont – $468,000
Fairview – $117,000
Farmington – $130,000
Gassaway – $130,000
Glenville – $65,000
Grafton – $429,000
Grant Town – $263,000
Greenbrier County Commission – $572,000
Hancock County Commission – $117,000
Harrison County Commission – $413,500
Hinton – $481,000
Hundred – $65,000
Huntington – $213,000
Kanawha County Commission –$1,500,000
Kingwood – $78,000
Logan – City of – $156,000
Lost Creek – $52,000
Madison – $78,000
Mannington – $286,000
Marlinton – $156,000
Mason – $20,000
Mason County Commission – $52,000
Masontown – $130,000
Mercer County – $750,000
Milton – $76,000
Mingo County – $143,000
Montgomery – $65,000
Morgantown – $650,000
Moundsville – $169,000
New Martinsville – $260,000
Nitro – $234,000
Pennsboro – $26,000
Philippi – $130,000
Piedmont – $151,850
Princeton – $78,000
Raleigh County Commission – $494,000
Richwood – $260,000
Roane County Commission – $156,000
Ronceverte – $182,000
Rupert – $169,000
Salem – $145,500
Sistersville – $195,000
Smithfield – $104,000
St Albans – $182,000
St Marys – $104,000
Summers County Commission – $201,000
Wardensville – $26,000
Webster County Commission – $260,000
Weirton – $78,000
West Milford – $65,000
Westover – $78,000
Wheeling – $377,000
White Sulphur Springs – $234,000
Williamson – $260,000
Wood County Commission – $182,000
Worthington – $78,000
Wyoming County – $234,000

Facing West Virginia’s Child Care Cliff

On a national level, the end of pandemic-era benefits will affect child care costs and access. West Virginia hopes to avoid those shortfalls by relying on individual child care subsidies that date back to the 1960s.

The end of pandemic-era benefits will affect child care costs and access on a national level. West Virginia hopes to avoid those shortfalls by relying on individual child care subsidies that date back to the 1960s.

Sept. 30 marked the official end of federal pandemic-related stabilization money aimed at bolstering child care services in the U.S. Meaning, states had to have spent their allotted funds by that date.

In 2021, $40 billion in funding went to child care centers across the nation from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

According to the Administration for Children and Families, in West Virginia, 645 child care centers and 925 child care family homes received stabilization payments totaling more than $160 million.

The child care centers used the funds to pay for personnel costs and keep programs staffed. In some cases, child care centers used the funds to keep prices lower for parents struggling to pay for child care. Child care family homes mostly used the money to pay for personal protective equipment to ensure safe environments for children and staff.

Of that $160 million total, $101 million in ARPA funding was allocated to DHHR’s child care subsidy program in order to increase reimbursement rates.

Kent Nowviskie, deputy commissioner for Programs and Policy at the Bureau for Family Assistance at the DHHR, said the funding allowed child care providers to be paid on the basis of enrollment in their programs rather than daily attendance.

“We switched to doing something that providers had been asking for for a long time, which was to pay them a monthly rate for each child enrolled in their setting instead of a daily rate that they had to calculate based on the attendance of the child,” Nowviskie said.

While the 2021 ARPA stabilization funds were a source of additional funding, West Virginia has had access to child care subsidies since the Appalachian Regional Development Act.

“We here at the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, or even before it was the Department of Health and Human Resources, we’ve been doing that since 1969,” Nowviskie said. “That is an ongoing thing, it is not going away, those child care subsidies are not going away.”

Nowviskie said it is important to understand that in the child care industry, subsidies refer to the payments that are made to providers for services provided to specific children.

“So it’s an individual payment per child who’s being served in a child care setting,” he said.

Nowviskie said some ARPA funds had dedicated purposes, or places they had to be spent. One of these designations was subsidy payments, so the state increased the rates it paid for each child.

The DHHR also expanded eligibility to everyone regardless of income who met the definition of essential worker, as outlined in the governor’s March 2020 executive order.

Julie Kashen is the director of women’s economic justice and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank in Washington D.C. She said the federal grant structure allowed families of more diverse incomes to qualify nationally.

“One of the differences between the stabilization grants and the supplemental grants is that the stabilization grants were able to reach a wider variety of families because they didn’t have that same income restriction,” Kashen said. “There was much more of a combination of the poorest families, lower income families, middle class families, were able to benefit from that.”

Nowviskie said the DHHR has taken steps to mitigate the loss of ARPA funds but in October 2022, the DHHR restored income eligibility requirements for child care subsidies.

“When we saw that those monies were dwindling, we circled the wagons here to try to figure out what we could do to stretch those out as long as we could,” Nowviskie said. “And we put an income limit back on.”

When this ARPA funding allocated for subsidy assistance was exhausted in May 2023, the DHHR set aside $24 million of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding to allow providers to continue being paid by enrollment for services rendered through August 2024.

“So until September of next year, services provided through August of next year, then we’ll be able to keep the pay by enrollment going as well as those increased rates,” Nowviskie said.

Nowviskie and other experts agree a long term solution would be the best case scenario.

“We don’t anticipate readjusting rates downward,” Nowviskie said. “But absent an influx of additional funding, we may have to go back to a pay by attendance model, which is not ideal. Child care providers nationally are advocating and trying to move toward the pay by enrollment model. In fact, I think Congress is looking at the issue. So we hope they have some additional funding that will come along with that.”

Bill Franko is an associate professor of political science and director of graduate studies at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. He worries that child care settings will struggle to pay their staff at the same rate they have since 2021.

“What’s going to happen is the centers are not going to have the money to pay living wages to the child center workers,” Franko said. “You’re gonna have fewer people who are going to want to enter that industry or stay in that industry. It’s going to be much more temporary, like it was prior to the 2021 influx of the child care stabilization funds.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Federal Funds Help Private Schools Expand Internet Access

Seven private West Virginia schools will receive more than $120,000 from the Federal Communications Commission.

Seven private West Virginia schools will receive more than $120,000 from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The largest individual award of $53,850 will go to the Eastern Panhandle Preparatory Academy, a charter school in Kearneysville.

The other six awards are:

$37,600 – St. Patrick School, Weston
$6,926 – St. Michael School, Wheeling
$6,926 – Central Catholic High School, Wheeling
$6,926 – Our Lady of Peace School, Wheeling
$6,233 – St. Paul School, Weirton
$3,694 – Fairmont Catholic School, Fairmont

The funding is made possible through the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) and will help the schools purchase laptops and tablets, Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers and broadband connections for students, faculty and staff.

The ECF was authorized as part of the American Rescue Plan to provide $7.17 billion to expand distance learning and connectivity around the country.

The most recent allocation last year went to Greenbrier, Nicholas, Wayne, Kanawha, Cabell and Lincoln County School Districts.

Federal AmeriCorps Funding To Support Service, Education Programs Throughout State

AmeriCorps is sending more than $8 million to five programs across the state as part of its state and national grant program.

The money will fund a literacy mentorship program at West Virginia University, an education and leadership program in Hillsboro, and an opioid prevention program for grade school students in Charleston.

Other programs receiving funding, but not related to education, include supporting the Appalachian Forest Heritage Area in Elkins and a program that addresses diet-related health disparities in underserved communities in Wheeling.

Specific funding for each of the programs include:

$1,724,777 – West Virginia University, Morgantown
$1,154,600 – High Rocks Educational Corporation, Hillsboro
$894,735 – United Way of Central West Virginia, Charleston
$792,000 – Appalachian Forest Heritage Area, Elkins
$310,984 – Grow Ohio Valley, Wheeling

AmeriCorps separately announced $1,610,047 in funding for the National Council on Aging branch based in Wheeling Thursday. It’s set to place 72 senior AmeriCorps volunteers in the Northern Panhandle counties into the workforce by the end of its three-year grant cycle.

Volunteer West Virginia is also receiving nearly $1.7 million. The agency will use the money for more statewide resources during the next few months.

Funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act, the federal stimulus bill passed in 2021. It will affect 555 AmeriCorps volunteers working in West Virginia.

Nonprofit Group To Use Federal Funding For Green Projects, Jobs

Funding totaling $90 million is slated for green energy jobs throughout the state.

An annual report from the Reclaiming Appalachia Coalition, a group of regional nonprofits in the Virginias and Ohio, lays out projects led by primary sponsor Coalfield Development and the Appalachian Climate Technologies Coalition.

Two-thirds of the funding is from the U.S. Economic Development Administration as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), passed in 2021.

Projects include converting abandoned factories and brownfields in Charleston and Huntington into green manufacturing plants and job training centers, and repurposing abandoned mines into renewable energy fields that would use solar, wind or geothermal sources.

Other purposes for abandoned mines like eco-tourism and recreation, food production and rare earth element development are also planned. West Virginia University is working with the organization on the mine reclamation project.

The group also plans to launch programs for digital technology and “green-collar” workforce training, climate resilience initiatives for small businesses and entrepreneurs and finance other renewable energy projects in the state.

Coalfield Development estimates it will create 5,000 direct jobs and 15,000 indirect jobs in 21 West Virginia counties.

Another project outlined in the report is the SkyView Lodging and Wellness Center. It will include eight to 12 cabins, as well as a center for those in substance use recovery programs, on a partially-reclaimed mine site in Mingo County near Delbarton.

The cabins are meant to provide lodging for bicycle riders alongside a pavilion for substance use recovery programs to host training events and retreats.

“Our project consists of three components that will employ at least 50 former coal miners or people in recovery from Substance Use Disorder with supportive apprenticeship and life skills training programs,” the report said.

The construction is planned to create 30 permanent jobs, 60 temporary construction jobs and 120 on-the-job training positions, according to the report.

It’s being funded separately from the ARPA funds, with the majority of the project being funded through New Market Tax Credit loans totaling $6,158,000. An extra $2 million from the Department of the Interior’s Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization Program is still pending.

Lawmakers Disagree Over Appropriation Of Federal Relief Funds

With the signing of the tax cut bill, lawmakers have taken a significant step towards finalizing a budget. However, there are still some coronavirus relief monies yet to be appropriated, and significant debate on how to use them.

With the signing of the tax cut bill, lawmakers have taken a significant step towards finalizing a budget. However there are still some coronavirus relief monies yet to be appropriated, and significant debate on how to use them.

House Bill 2883 would make a supplemental appropriation of $500 million from the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund to the Economic Development Authority.

Community activists from almost a dozen organizations including the NAACP and the ACLU gathered Tuesday morning to call for a portion of those funds – about $300 million – to be invested into West Virginia’s poorest communities.

Rev. Matthew Watts of the Tuesday Morning Group has promoted an alternative application of remaining federal relief funds since before the start of the session. He wants to take the $300 million and allocate those dollars to cities, towns and counties based upon the proportion of people living below the poverty line.

He and others are now concerned that allocating the money to economic development doesn’t meet the intent or requirements for American Rescue Plan Act funds.

“It now appears that the legislature is going to seriously entertain the governor’s request that $500 million of the remaining $678 million in ARPA dollars go to the general economic development fund,” Watts said. “We think it’s just important to bring it back to the public’s attention that that was not the federal government’s intention when they sent the money. They made it clear in the guidelines that general economic development was not an allowable expense.”

Watts says the spirit and intent of the federal statute was to be invested strategically in underserved and long marginalized and disadvantaged communities. He believes that can still be done while also meeting the governor’s desire for large-scale business investment.

“It’s just a matter of them realizing it’s not a zero-sum game, it does not have to be either we give all the money to our state corporation for economic development, or we give some money to invest in the people in the places where they live,” Watts said. “They both can be done because with the $1.7 billion in budget surplus, with the remaining $677 million in opera dollars, there is an opportunity to do both.”

House Minority Leader Del. Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, is the bill’s co-sponsor. As the minority leader, Skaff said his name being on the bill is largely ceremonial, and he has promoted several amendments to try and codify Watt’s proposal for community aid from the funding.

“A lot of us feel like we should not put that much money into that fund. Economic development is what we need and what we’ve done,” Skaff said. “We’ve done a lot over the last couple years, but we still have people in need. We have counties, hurting cities, and we have to take care of our people who are still coming back out of COVID. We have proposed amendment after amendment to take $300 million of that and put it in underserved areas around the state.”

Skaff believes, like Watts, that direct investment in communities is a viable form of economic development.

Senate Finance Chair Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, is not convinced that such a direct expenditure would be the best use of the funds.

“The way that we, the Senate, has been characterizing those revenues is an opportunity to save money going forward, or to improve the return, whether it be in jobs or whether it be in revenue that comes in state off those investments, for the operations of state going forward,” Tarr said. “So, to go out and grant it just on communities at large, without addressing those two issues – which those two issues I just mentioned, are nine times out of 10 job creating initiatives in West Virginia, which end up helping all these communities. I think it’s a difference in philosophy of how you do it: directly grant it to communities versus teaching men to fish so to speak, when we bring jobs into communities.”

As the legislative session draws to a close, Watts wants to see his proposal codified, but is hopeful the governor can still use the funds to help West Virginians.

What he doesn’t understand are the motivations of some legislators.

“I don’t know how the legislators from my part of the state, the southern West Virginia coalfields, that look like a third world country that’s just been devastated by war, I don’t know how they can go back to their cities, into the towns, to the villages and look the people in the eye and explain to them why they would not stand up and support our idea that some of that money came back to their counties,” he said. “I don’t know why they want to be here, if they’re not going to represent the people that sent them here. We will see what they do when it comes time for them to vote in these respective committees.”

House Bill 2883 was approved by the House Finance Committee later on Tuesday with the recommendation to the full House of Delegates that it do pass. Several amendments to the bill, including Skaff’s proposal for direct investment in communities, were voted down.