The City of St. Louis has about 10 months to spend around $196 million—and if it doesn’t, the federal government can claw the money back.
The money represents nearly 40 percent of the $498 million the city received as part of the American Rescue Plan Act four years ago. St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer says her administration is spending time each Friday to look at every city departments’ ARPA expenditures, identifying money in danger of not getting spent and redirecting it elsewhere. With its remaining balance at risk of claw back, the city needs to spend more than $600,000 a day.
“I can’t guarantee anything, but what I can tell you is that we are working tirelessly to ensure that we don’t leave money on the table,” Spencer said. She says that her goal is to have the money spent by a deadline closer to September than New Year’s Eve…