South Dakota requests ARPA funding

PIERRE, S.D. -- (Dakota News Now) - Governor Kristi Noem has asked for the state’s allocation from the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF). The SLFRF is part of the American Recovery Plan Act, and they provide an allocation of $974.5 million to the state of South Dakota.

An extra $65.2 million dollars will flow through state government to non-metropolitan cities within South Dakota.

“The Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds allow broad flexibility in deciding how best to use this funding to meet the needs of our communities. I look forward to working with the legislature to find ways we might use much of these funds to invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure,” said Governor Noem.

Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and each county in the state will be subject to their own share of the SLFRF directly from the federal government. Any other South Dakota towns will need to request their share of funding through the state, following the same process the state used to request funding from the U.S. Treasury.

The U.S. Treasury can split the funding into two equal payments for the state governments except where the unemployment rate is 2.0 or more percentage points above the pre-pandemic level. That means South Dakota will get half the funding in 2021 and the other half in 2022. The non-metropolitan city funding will also be provided in two tranches.

South Dakota has compiled information on the Bureau of Finance and Management’s website at https://bfm.sd.gov. A list can be found there as well.