PENDLETON — Pendleton Town Council voted on a range of ordinances recently, from one directing the installation of more stop signs around Pendleton Elementary School-Primary to ones addressing town growth issues.

But one discussion point unrelated to ordinances stood out Thursday, March 11, as much for its brevity as for its significance — a mention of federal dollars that may be coming Pendleton’s way.

“It looks like we’re going to get a little over $900,000 from the COVID rescue plan. I don’t know the details,” town manager Scott Reske said.

“I want everybody to understand that $900,000 is tentative, OK,” council President Chet Babb added. “There’s nothing — they just signed the bill this afternoon, so we got this note yesterday. All that’s tentative. So, it doesn’t mean that we’re getting $900,000 as we sit here right now.”

“Thank you for saying that,” Reske said. “It’s the warning shot, what’s coming.”

Congress passed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package last week.
Preliminary estimates show roughly $5.8 billion will be directed toward Indiana. About $3 billion would go to state government, and $2.6 billion to cities and counties, and $200 million for a state capital projects fund, said Rachel Hoffmeyer, a spokeswoman for Gov. Eric Holcomb.
Reske said he cited the figure from a spreadsheet from Accelerate Indiana Municipalities (formerly Indiana Association of Cities and Towns), which included a breakdown of COVID-19 relief estimates from the House Oversight Committee.
On Tuesday, Babb said he hadn’t received any new information on the funds, and declined to say where any funds might be used.
“I can’t speculate on what we’re going to do with it because I don’t have the guidelines on it,” Babb said.
He reiterated any amount coming to Pendleton was not yet official.
Reske said he has ideas about how to spend any money heading to Pendleton, subject to guidelines.
“My biggest concern is how much time do I have, how long can I hold onto it — do I have one year to expend the funds or do I have longer.
“If I have a certain time, then it forces me to do some infrastructure improvements that don’t require engineering,” he said. “In the past when the stimulus happened in the crash after 2008, nobody had time to do anything other than resurface roads because of the engineering.
“Lucky for us, we do have some shovel-ready projects, or close to shovel-ready — Franklin Street being one. That’s a prime candidate, if I have to expend it really fast, because it’s leveraged, our funds, with a (state) Community Crossing grant,” Reske said. “Now, if I have long term, it’ll change what we use the money for.”
Babb said when the town received $138,000 in COVID-19 relief funds last year, everything purchased had to be COVID-related. Town purchases then included Plexiglas, hand sanitizer and laptops so employees could work from home, he said.
Babb expects COVID-19 restrictions this time, too. Reske, though, said expects it to be different.
“If there are COVID restrictions, I mean, that’s a lot of money, and remember, we already had COVID money. Without knowing yet, my guess is it’s intended to be used to stimulate the economy and put people back to work. And economists say there’s nothing better than construction for that.”