Editor’s Note: This is the third in a three-part series looking at how Knox County spent its COVID-19 funds received through the American Rescue Plan Act. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.
MOUNT VERNON — Easing the burden on future taxpayers played a critical role in how Knox County spent its pandemic relief funds.
Of the $350 billion the federal government dispensed to local governments through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), Knox County received $12.2 million.
According to 2021 Government Finance Officers Association guidelines, infrastructure is “particularly well-suited” for ARPA funds because it is a non-recurring expense that can target assets that provide benefits over many years.
Knox County’s commissioners took that to heart.
“We have done our best to look at projects and requests and decide which ones will have a long-term impact, so infrastructure and capital projects have been at the top of our list,” former commissioner Teresa Bemiller told Knox Pages in July 2022.
“We early on thought we’re going to have to hit these water areas because that’s where the money is going to go,” County Administrator Jason Booth said.
Water and Wastewater Superintendent Jeff Pickrell already had a lengthy list of projects.
“We were able to hit the ground running due to his vigilance of always having the pulse on what his water and sewer systems needed,” Booth said.
“We ended up spending about $4.6 million in water and wastewater infrastructure improvements. That was about 38% of the money we received.”
Pickrell grouped his projects into three categories: Phase 1 “must-do,” Phase 2 “generational” and “Other.”
The most significant project he identified was the generational Pleasant View Acres sewer plant upgrade at $2.2 million.
A cost-prohibitive project becomes a reality
The wastewater retention lagoons serving the Pleasant View Acres (PVA) subdivision have been in place since the 1970s.
“The county was proactive in upgrading the treatment facility at PVA. We were starting to have issues with the embarkment that was going to need addressed,” Pickrell said.
“Since the system is very dependent on Mother Nature and the amount of rainfall that falls in the lagoons, we struggled at times to stay within our permit limits on certain parameters. Taking advantage of the ARPA funds to upgrade the system now allows for no financial impact to the residents of PVA.”
With the new system and more stringent discharge limits, Pickrell said the county can meet these limits now and in the future.
The new wastewater treatment plant went operational on June 6, 2024. It can process 8,000 to 10,000 gallons of wastewater daily, nearly double the capacity PVA needs.
It can also serve Amity. Extending sewer to Amity ranked No. 3 on Knox Public Health’s list of concerns.
If the county had not used ARPA money for the upgrade, subdivision customers would have shouldered the cost burden.
“There are only 35 customers there,” Booth said. “That would have been a really cost-prohibitive project to ever be able to pull off without heavy debt to the taxpayer.”
In addition to funding county infrastructure projects, the commissioners contributed ARPA money to the City of Mount Vernon and Village of Fredericktown to help with their infrastructure needs.
Although Booth classified them under community support, he said, “Those were really done as generational projects to save current taxpayers and future taxpayers from paying for those fees.”
‘Must-do’ projects accommodate future growth
The most critical “must-do” project involved replacing the telemetry systems at the water and wastewater treatment plants.
These systems monitor and run the plants. The county had deferred upgrades due to budget constraints; however, sewer tech support was about to run out.
On the water side, the county still faced a 50% water loss after installing new meters.
The county invested in new telemetry systems, camera equipment to view the lines and other water loss monitoring equipment.
The upgrades did not totally eliminate water loss. However, they are significantly less, and Booth noted that the new equipment pinpoints much quicker and closer where losses occur.
Pickrell previously stated there will always be some water loss, but he would like to see it around 20%.
Additionally, the county rebuilt or upgraded three pump stations.
“Jeff also did a lot of replacing. He put generators out all through Apple Valley at the (12) pump stations for when we have power outages to provide better services to the consumer now and into the future,” Booth said.
He acknowledged that upgrades to Apple Valley infrastructure benefited perhaps a small portion of county residents.
“It’s 5,000 of 62,000 people, but that’s a pretty good customer base,” he said.
“Certainly through lots of infrastructure that will not need replaced or repaired hopefully for many, many years, that was a savings to our local taxpayers.”
Additionally, Booth said it was “monumental” to replace infrastructure without taking on debt for the consumer or raiding other funds.
“It probably would have never gotten done, so even though something might benefit only the 5,000, it benefits the rest of the county because you’re not supplementing it with the general fund,” he said.
“Those are the kind of things that I think are truly generational projects. In the future, you’ll have to replace equipment, but the infrastructure is in place, the monitoring is in place. All of that accommodates future growth.”
County facilities benefit from ARPA money: $1.2 million
In addition to water and wastewater infrastructure, Knox County spent $1,232,902.81 upgrading county buildings.
Roughly $1.12 million went toward HVAC upgrades in the Memorial Building.
Kitchen ventilation improvements in the Knox County Sheriff’s Office accounted for $112,606.81.
Both projects qualified for ARPA funds under the air quality in a community or aggregate setting. Improving air quality became eligible when the Treasury Department broadened its original criteria.
County engineer support: $869,713
Of the $869,713 allocated to the county engineer’s office, $273,494 went toward the Danville-Amity Road improvement project.
Another $510,000 was used for the Lower Gambier Road bridge replacement and replacing box culverts.
Nearly $48,000 went toward paving costs, contracts and various other expenses accounted for $38,298.
In January 2022, seven months after the U.S. Treasury Department issued criteria and Knox County started allocating money to projects, the government changed its eligibility parameters.
Booth said that had the county engineer’s office been eligible initially, the commissioners would have provided him additional money.
“I’d say that’s probably really the only area [we would have changed],” he said. “It would have been difficult to decide what we weren’t going to do in order to fund him more, but I think we would have tried to push some more money his way for county infrastructure.”
The county completed the work on its ARPA projects by the fall of 2024 and closed its fund on Nov. 14, 2024.
Booth said former commissioners Teresa Bemiller and Thom Collier, along with current Commissioner Bill Pursel, were in tune with the process and proud of the way the county handled the money.
“We wanted to get it wrapped up before they left office because they were the ones who were in it from the beginning, so to speak, to understand it and what it was for, as well as the benefits and how projects were chosen,” Booth said.
