Editor’s note: Over the next several weeks, The Smithfield Times will publish an overview of how each locality in our coverage area spent its allotted American Rescue Plan Act funds, which must be allocated by Dec. 31 of this year and spent by the end of 2026.

 

A portion of Isle of Wight County’s local cost participation in a regional high-speed internet buildout, and a new water line serving Hardy Elementary, came via reimbursements from its American Rescue Plan Act allocation.

Local governments, including Isle of Wight County and its two towns, each received millions of dollars in 2022 from ARPA, as the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief package Congress passed in 2021 has become known. Each has until Dec. 31 to obligate any remaining funds and through the end of 2026 to spend them.

The Smithfield Times, based on public records and email interviews, has compiled an overview of how Isle of Wight County, its school system, and the towns of Smithfield and Windsor spent their ARPA allocations and what remains available to date. A breakdown of how Smithfield spent its ARPA funds was published in the July 24 print edition and online.

 

Isle of Wight County

Allocated $7.2 million

Unspent: $0

 

“Tier 5 ARPA recipients (counties with a population below 250,000 residents) that were allocated less than $10 million were allowed to use the funds for revenue replacement,” said Assistant County Administrator Don Robertson. “By taking that option, the County was able to free up local funding to make necessary investments in projects that would have been allowable under ARPA such as water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure.”

According to the county’s 2022-23 fiscal year budget, $4.8 million in ARPA reimbursements went toward its share of costs connected with extending water and sewer service to the new Hardy Elementary. By the 2023-24 fiscal year, the budget no longer listed ARPA as a component of its funding for one-time capital projects.

The in-town phase of the water main extended a 12-inch main from the intersection of Thomas Street and Luter Drive in downtown Smithfield to Berry Hill Road on the opposite side of the Pagan River. A second phase will connect the line from Berry Hill to a booster station off Old Stage Highway, and from there to a 500,000-gallon water tower that serves Hardy, and will eventually also serve three surrounding neighborhoods.

The tower itself is completed. The connection of the pump station on Old Stage Highway to the tower is expected to be completed this fall, Robertson said. Once that’s done, the Thomas Park neighborhood, located directly across the street from Hardy, will be connected to the tower and begin receiving water the county purchases from the town of Smithfield.

The connection of the Tormentor’s Lake and Days Point neighborhoods to the tower “have not been scheduled,” Robertson said.

“The costs associated with connecting those communities will likely be over $10 million, so we will look for grants and other funding sources to reduce the amount of local funding needed for the projects,” he said.

Another $2.4 million in ARPA reimbursements, as of the 2022-23 fiscal year, went toward broadband expansion.

Charter Communications, the area’s dominant internet service provider, broke ground in mid-2022 on a $37 million expansion of high-speed internet availability to the rural areas of Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the city of Suffolk that is scheduled to be complete by mid-2025.

Several years ago, Charter was awarded 1,839 Isle of Wight “passings,” which refer to any physical home or business address able to be connected to Charter’s network, through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, or RDOF, a federal program that allows internet service providers to compete for the right to provide service to specific census blocks. Charter was awarded an additional 1,378 passings through the Virginia Telecommunications Initiative, or VATI, which in 2022 also contributed $22.7 million in state funding toward the project. Charter and the three participating localities are footing the remaining $14.5 million cost.