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New Bedford has finalized plans to spend the last of its federal pandemic relief dollars, meeting a critical deadline at the end of last year.
The city has now “obligated” all of the $82 million it received from the American Rescue Plan. That means every project has been finalized by a contract, grant agreement, or invoice. Any money that wasn’t obligated by Dec. 31 would have had to be returned to the federal government.
New Bedford locked in about $16 million during the last three months of 2024, according to the latest spending report, released last week. The vast majority of those dollars were obligated in December alone.
The city mainly followed its previous spending plans, but made a few new commitments, including $1.1 million more for the Zeiterion and $476,000 more for lighting in Brooklawn Park.
At the last minute, the city increased its commitment to the Zeiterion from $5,750,000 to $6,855,000. The Zeiterion requested and was awarded an additional $750,000 for its massive ongoing renovation, said the city’s public information officer Jonathan Darling.
The city also gave the Zeitierion $355,000 in pandemic relief funds to fulfill its annual support agreement with the nonprofit, Darling said. The agreement calls for the city to pay $495,000, he said, but the City Council did not approve the full amount requested in Mayor Jon Mitchell’s supplemental budget request last year. Pandemic relief funds, unlike the rest of the budget, are approved by the mayor.
A few smaller projects, each under $25,000, received new commitments. The city spent $24,837 on portable speed radar signs that tell drivers how fast they’re going, to be deployed in areas where speeding is an issue. The New Bedford Fire Museum received $23,500 for an urgent boiler replacement.
The city plans to spend $20,000 on a collaboration with Buzzards Bay Coalition to improve water quality in Buttonwood Brook and connected waters. New infrastructure at the Buttonwood Park Zoo will capture manure-laden stormwater runoff from animal enclosures before it reaches the brook. Most of the funding for the project comes from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a state estuary protection program, Darling said.
At the cost of $9,900, wells that were used for monitoring past environmental remediation work were removed from the Payne Cutlery Superfund site. This “opens up the possibility of an interim use of the property, potentially for soccer,” Darling wrote in an email.
Some existing line items increased significantly at the end of 2024.
Funding for LED lighting at Brooklawn Park increased from $427,036 to $903,048. The original commitment funded lighting at the city’s Pony League field, Darling said, while the additional funding upgraded lighting at the Whaling City Youth Baseball and Bay State Softball fields.
The city committed an additional $224,480 to pay for “positions created to address service pressure points brought on by COVID” over the next two years, Darling said. It brings the total amount for that line item to $721,718.
Another $200,000 was added to a line item for NBForward!, a grant program run by the New Bedford Economic Development Center to help local businesses cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. The city hasn’t spent any money on the program since at least October 2023, when $1,685,749 had been spent. But the city’s commitment to the line item has increased: from $2,200,000 to $2,665,000 by September 2024 and to $2,865,000 by December 2024.
In response to questions about the increased NBForward! funding, Darling said the Center’s contract has been amended to include a request for proposals for “downtown district management services.” The new project is “somewhat related” to a controversial failed attempt to create a downtown business improvement district last year, Darling wrote: “The RFP scope includes activities that BIDs often handle, and it includes planning for a sustainable long-term district management structure.”
Under a line item for reports and studies, the city added an additional $50,000 for a study on building a new police headquarters and $9,000 for legal support relating to a planned walkway along the Acushnet River.
▸ READ THE FULL SPENDING REPORT HERE
New Bedford set itself apart from other local governments by spending much of its pandemic relief money on big construction projects, rather than temporary programs.
Millions of dollars helped developers build new apartments, and millions more unspent dollars will flow through the New Bedford Redevelopment Authority to revamp vacant properties. Nonprofits such as the Whaling Museum, NorthStar Learning Center, and the YMCA received grants to improve their facilities. Infrastructure projects also received significant infusions — the city’s allocation supported waterfront walkway design, a future broadband network, stormwater management, and much more.
The city now has just one final deadline: Any funds not actually spent by the end of 2026 must be returned to the federal government. The most recent report shows that 65% of the funding has been spent so far.
Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org.
Like the City Budget that continues to bring higher taxes, the APRA funding is just another illustration of the Mitchell Administration’s lack of Physical Financial Responsibility. We have a Waste Water Treatment Plant in the South End that was built and put into operation on August 22, 1996 and is in need of major repairs and upgrades. The plant’s emissions are once again affecting the South End’s air quality, hurting businesses, and bothering local residents. The wastewater discharges are polluting and contaminating Buzzard Bay, neighboring towns, waterways, sea life, shellfish beds, and also affecting recreational use (beaches and swimming). It would have been wise for our City’s Leadership to use a major portion of the APRA Funds to address the Wastewater Plant’s failures. In the end this is another issue that will come back to impact home owners and business owners with higher Sewer and Water Bills.
I am certain that all of the programs mentioned in this article have some form of merit, but it is hard to not question whether or not US Federal funds forced to be allocated by a hard deadline at 12/31/2024 were always economically allocated in a way that looked like common sense to most taxpayers. I suspect they were not and that situation has helped to support the current “sledge hammer” approach of Trump/Musk to attack all federal spending. We seem to go back and forth from one extreme to another: gross overallocation to cutting everything to zero. No way to run the railroad in my humble opinion!
Blaming local government infrastructure and relief allocations for the present chain saw madness of the Man Child and his questionably sane “leader” is just laughable. Akin to blaming Ukraine for Putin’s war. The projects mentioned all have merit, whether large or small, and the city’s ability to address them with federal appropriations is nothing but appropriate and fiscally responsible given the alternative of bonded debt. There was no “forcing” of obligations. The December date was written into the law by Congress a few years back. These deadlines are routine and would never have been highlighted by the press but for Trump’s victory. I applaud the city for meeting their legal, not forced, deadlines. That the sewer treatment plant was not addressed is more of a policy matter: the city and state should primarily rely on the federal government, the EPA, for resources to clean our waters. It’s the law. The city should also be looking at state programs to control pollution. That the Trump administration is gutting the EPA should sound alarms about where this Nation is headed. Public health is at risk and Washington seeks cuts to fund tax breaks for the very rich. One other thing: there’s constant carping about “my taxpayer funds” being used for this and that project. Massachusetts sends DC much more in tax receipts than it receives in Federal grants and aid. While the rants continue about “my tax money” being used for this of that Federally funded project in the city, your dollars are actually subsidizing needed in projects in the south, mid-Atlantic, rust belt, Plains and the west. Is that acceptable to the complainers? New Bedford should continue to work to attract as much Federal grant monies as possible to address its critical needs. It was that way when I was city planner in the 70’s-80’s and it remains so today.
One last note. New Bedford has complied with the law. They have entered lawful contracts with properly appropriated funds. It is not entirely certain that this administration will be equally lawful. I can envision attempts to claw back funds, stop grant draw downs, freeze all spending, fire outright the project administrators and any other attempts to flagrantly ignore or delete programs.
Bravo!
Sewer and water should have been addressed with theses funds.
Sewer was being tested for signs of illness and water has to be as pure as possible to prevent illness.
Using the funds for anything else was just ” flushing away money” because it was there.
This is a complete waste of federal tax payer dollars, and with it spent on New Bedford makes it that much worse!
Less than 20% of the population of New Bedford residents pay federal taxes annually, there are very few who read this, but I’m sure some people will say 20% isn’t correct because many more working residents have federal taxes taken out of their weekly check, but that doesn’t make them a tax payer, that just means the government is “Withholding” federal taxes from their pay, but when they file their taxes the following spring, most receive all federal taxes withheld, and many get more money back due to the child tax credit, rental deduction, and more, so there are less than 20% of working people in New Bedford actually pay taxes, and instead of taking that covid-19 funds back and paying down the national debt, the useless Democrats are allowing cities, towns, and states to waste the federal tax payer funds improving a city like this with more people on welfare, SNAP, WIC, section 8 housing, and housing projects residents who don’t even have to pay for utilities, what a joke, and such a terrible waste of federal tax payer dollars!!!