State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Helping Communities Recover from the Pandemic

The State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) provided under President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act continue to play a crucial role in allowing county governments to stabilize their budgets, respond to the pandemic, and invest in their communities. SLFRF provides more than $65 billion in flexible aid to county governments, representing the first time in history this level of direct Federal support has gone to every county across the nation. SLFRF is allowing state, local, Tribal, and territorial governments to make key investments in infrastructure projects that respond to needs that were highlighted by the pandemic and that will support future economic growth. Overall, more than 2,500 governments have budgeted more than $20 billion for over 6,000 critical infrastructure projects that support expanded access to high-speed internet and clean water. SLFRF is helping counties to further supercharge the historic federal investments in infrastructure delivered by the Biden-Harris Administration through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and complementing the American Rescue Plan investment in expanded affordable highspeed internet access through Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund. Counties investing in infrastructure include:

• Box Elder County, UT has spent $1.5 million to provide engineering, permitting, and construction resources for last-mile infrastructure investments to bring high-speed internet service to underserved rural communities in the county. This will help stabilize rural access to remote education, health care, and economic opportunity where privately-funded expansion is not feasible due to distances and low density.
• Carroll County, MD budgeted $15 million to make investments in broadband infrastructure in response to COVID-19 when households and businesses lacking reliable high speed service were at a significant disadvantage in areas such as educational, economic, and health opportunities. Carroll County will increase access to the 12% of Carroll households and businesses currently unserved by a high-speed connection by providing 100/100 mbps service that will include an option for low-income customers.
• Erie County, NY allocated $34 million to address the broadband needs of unserved areas, improve services in underserved areas of the community, and enable broadband deployment county-wide. The fiber optic backbone will be owned by the county but managed and controlled by ErieNet, a not-for-profit local development corporation. ErieNet will be open for any viable entity to use or provide services to support broadband technologies and services.