Bangor city councilors will begin considering whether to give some of the more than $20 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding to the local organizations that applied for the money next week.
Councilors decided Monday to first consider 25 of the 60 applications the city received that a volunteer review panel gave the highest scores to. Those applicants include the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, Together Place Peer Run Recovery Center and local health care agencies, among others.
The city’s plan for how to consider proposals comes two years after Bangor received the first portion of its $20.8 million lump sum from the American Rescue Plan Act in May 2021. While Bangor has largely held onto its award, other Maine communities have been distributing their pots of pandemic relief money.
The Heart of Maine United Way oversaw 45 volunteers who evaluated applications for funding and made recommendations to the council. The review panel gave the applications a score based on criteria the Bangor councilors set, then provided a report earlier this month.
A complete list of the applicants, their proposals, monetary requests and the scores they received are available on the city’s website.
The councilors stressed that this plan for how to consider the highest scoring applications does not mean the city will automatically give the requested amount of funding to the 25 top-ranked applicants.
“For instance, the Bangor YMCA is on here asking for $2 million,” Councilor Gretchen Shaefer said. “I would not want to give them another $2 million in addition to the $2 million we’ve already pledged.”
Monetary requests within the top 25 ranked proposals range from $10,000 to nearly $4.7 million. Together, the top 25 proposals request more than $21.4 million. All 60 applicants, meanwhile, requested nearly $38 million in total.
The city only has about $16.6 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding left to give, which must be earmarked by 2024 and spent by 2027.
Shaefer said she also wouldn’t want to give a percentage of the funding requested to each of the top 25 applicants, and some requests may not be funded at all because they wouldn’t be an appropriate use of pandemic relief funds.
“We’re not going to fund a bunch of stuff, but that doesn’t mean that the organizations we’re not funding projects for aren’t doing valuable work,” Councilor Clare Davitt said. “It just means in this case, we can’t do it or the project isn’t relevant.”
Councilors also recognized that some proposals were given poor scores due to a lack of information provided in the application but still provide valuable services to Bangor. To combat that, councilors can choose their top five proposals, regardless of their scores, to consider in the first round.
“It’s good to have this evaluation as a starting point, but I don’t agree with some of the scores,” Councilor Dina Yacoubagha said. “We know that there are other organizations that scored less, but we know they do good work in the community and deserve support.”
Furthermore, councilors will review applications in weekly meetings based on their “area of emphasis,” meaning what issue the proposals seek to combat. They will begin with applications aimed at improving housing and substance use disorder next week.
Other “areas of emphasis” councilors outlined before opening the three-week application submission window in April include homelessness, child care, job training and workforce development, and mental health.