County to open grant applications for local nonprofits in February

Yamhill County will open applications in February for non-profit organizations to start applying for grant funds from its American Rescue Plan Act funds, county commissioners learned last week, and hopes to notify the recipients in April.

The grant program is one of several the commissioners are planning to address needs of government agencies and social support organizations. This one is intended to address economic impacts.

Commissioners spent most of their Jan. 20 meeting reviewing the grant application package with county Grants Manager Carrie Martin. They also will provide Martin with recommendations for staffing a review committee to score the applications and forward recommendations to the commissioners.

Earlier this month, commissioners approved grants to cities and special districts for water and sewer infrastructure grants and authorized county staff to begin advertising for consultants to create a plan for the county to create a grant program for rural broadband improvement.

The county was awarded an $21 million allocation from the ARPA. It received half last May, and expects to receive the other half this coming May.

Commissioners have created seven broad categories for distributing the money:

- Public health, 15% of the total, for a little more than $3.1 million;

- Economic impacts, 33% of the total, for $6.84 mil lion;

- Revenue loss, 14% of the total, for $2.9 million;

- Water and sewer infrastructure, 33% of the total for $6.86 million; and

- Broadband infrastructure, 5% of the total, for $1 million.

The commissioners also divided the economic impacts category into three subcategories: Expanding the availability of childcare, $2.2 million; grants to impacted industries, $2.2 million; and grants to nonprofit organizations, for $2.2 million.

In other business on Thursday, commissioners extended by one month the county’s COVID-19 leave policy, which covers employees out on quarantine, and approved reducing the fee the county charges for private road maintenance agreement permits and signs from $80 to $55.