While Chautauqua County has been awarded more than $24 million from the federal government through the latest stimulus package, that money will not be able to be used to lower taxes or put away for future use.

During the legislature’s Audit and Control Committee meeting, Chairman Chuck Nazzaro, D-Jamestown, shared that the COVID task force will soon be discussing the best use of the funds received through the American Rescue Plan Act.

“It can’t just go into the fund balance and be used to put it away for a rainy day. There are going to be guidelines to that,” he said. “We want to use that funding to have long lasting effects on the economic development in the future of Chautauqua County, not just one-shot items, but things that have a long lasting effect.”

County Executive PJ Wendel joined the virtual committee meeting and discussed the funding as well. “My goal for this originally was looking at fund balance and maybe seeing how long this could last, but unfortunately what we were told is it needs to be spent in two years or thereabouts,” he said.

With that requirement, Wendel said his initial thoughts are to use the money to create public-private partnerships.

“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. You teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime,” he said. “That’s where were looking with these projects. We want those long term sustainability, things that are going to impact lives, that are going to change the way we do things over time.”

Wendel said the reason the federal government has put this requirement in place is it wants the money spent to stimulate the economy. “It’s unique. We have money and they’re telling us ‘spend it fast,'” he said. “We are going to invest in projects that give us the most bang for our buck, the most we can leverage with those dollars.”

The first project Wendel said they are looking at is expanding broadband. He is working with Mark Geise from the county Industrial Development Agency and other economic leaders to explore various options.

County legislator Terry Niebel, R-Sheridan, said he wants to see the money put in an interest bearing account that they can spend the interest, however Wendel said that isn’t permitted. “We can’t even use it to drop taxes X number of dollars. We’re not allowed to do that with this money, which is unfortunate in many ways,” Wendel said.

According to Kitty Crow, county finance director, there will be two payments — one for this year and one for next. “The second increment is contingent upon us identifying a plan,” she said.

She did say even though they won’t have the money very long, for any period they have it, it will be earning interest. “That’s something we do every day, with any money we have in our bank account,” she said.

Crow said the money can be used to cover lost revenue, for example in sales tax projections, but the majority of it will need to be spent on physical projects. “They want us to be using this money for infrastructure projects, for water, sewer and broadband,” she said. “I think broadband would be fantastic for our county because we all know, as far as education, and all kinds of things the broadband is needed.”

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan. In it was $12.6 billion for local governments in the state. Preliminary reports had Chautauqua County getting $24.6 million, Jamestown getting $29.87 million, and the city of Dunkirk getting $11.5 million. Pomfret was the only other municipality expected to receive over $1 million, getting $1.52 million. The rest of the towns were expected to get less than $1 million each of varying amounts. Village totals were not announced.