The Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan has directly impacted Habersham County’s local governments, helping the county purchase its upgraded E-911 radio system and allowing municipal governments to begin projects that support local infrastructure.
The ARP will distribute a total of $350 billion in economic COVID-19 relief to eligible state, local, territorial and tribal governments. Habersham County received over $8 million total in ARP funds. Georgia governments supporting populations of less than 50,000 people received a total of $861.8 million, according to the Georgia Municipal Association.
Those funds can be used to provide premium pay for a municipality’s essential workers, as well as support public health response for the COVID-19 pandemic, improve water, sewer and broadband infrastructure and support economic need created by the pandemic.
Many of Habersham’s municipalities are using a portion of their ARP funds to provide premium pay bonuses to their city employees that continued to work during the pandemic.
The City of Baldwin has, by far, offered the highest premium pay to employees with ARP funds out of all other cities in the county. Budgeting to use a total of $144,000 dollars from ARP funds, the city will offer a bonus of $3,000 to full-time employees and a bonus of $1,500 to part-time employees who served the city over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m thankful to our employees for sticking with us, for being willing to work during such a difficult time, always for the benefit of our citizens,” Baldwin Councilwoman Stephanie Almagno said after the council approved the premium pay. “I am happy to see that employee pay is number one on the list [of ARP projects], I think it represents our commitment to our employees.”
The City of Cornelia sits just below Baldwin in terms of dedicated ARP funds for premium pay, with $120,000 set to use for bonuses. The city plans to distribute a $250 bonus per quarter to city employees who have worked over the course of the pandemic, including the quarters in 2020 and first half of 2021, before the premium pay was instated.
Clarkesville will discuss instating premium pay with ARP funds at their coming Nov. 16 meeting, which is proposed to not exceed $31,000 total.
The City of Demorest’s ARP-funded premium pay will give a bonus of $500 to full-time employees and $200 to part-time employees, with a total premium pay budget of $18,000.
“All our departments work very hard, and we need to reward them and let them know that, particularly at this time,” Demorest Councilman John Hendrix said. “It’s been a difficult year with COVID, everybody’s gone the extra mile, and we have the ability to do that, and my view is we should do that.”
The Town of Mt. Airy is drafting a plan to use ARP funds to give premium pay bonuses to employees who served the city during the pandemic, and hopes to have an official plan for the funds within the coming months,
The Towns of Alto and Tallulah Falls don’t have plans at this time to use their ARP funds for premium pay.
Tallulah Falls hasn’t made definitive plans for how they will spend their ARP funds, but according to Town Clerk Linda Lapeyrouse, are considering spending their funds on water and sewer infrastructure exclusively.
This article has been updated.
