Brookings February 3, 2022
In the 10 months since the passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), cities and counties have been working to prioritize and execute investing of their portion of the act’s $350 billion in flexible State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF) dollars. And as recent Treasury Department guidance made clear, local leaders have myriad options to use these resources to address the direct health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to confront the underlying challenges that exacerbated the pandemic’s negative effects on vulnerable individuals, businesses, and communities.