With Butler County actively pursuing urban county designation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the 57 municipalities operating in it are left to decide whether or not to participate in the county’s Community Development Block Grant program.

With the population passing 200,000, the county meets requirements to be designated an urban county and receive CDBG funds directly from HUD instead of through the state. Block grant funds are restricted to projects that primarily benefit residents with low to moderate income.

In pursuit of the status, county commissioners voted Aug. 26 to ratify ongoing efforts to establish urban county designation with HUD. If HUD approves the application, the county will receive about $500,000 more in CDBG funding on top of the $900,000 it currently receives.

The county is also working to get a response from all municipalities on whether they are opting in or out of the program. Municipalities that opt in can apply to the county for the funding through HUD on eligible projects, but municipalities that opt out are not eligible.

For most of the 57 municipalities, the change in designation, if they opt in, allows them to continue receiving CDBG funding from the county, but they will have to follow different project guidelines.

However, for the six municipalities that received direct CDBG funding prior to the change, it would fundamentally alter how they receive funds.

Mark Gordon, the county’s economic development and planning chief, presented the choice of opting in or out to Butler City Council at its meeting Monday evening.

“There’s a lot of benefit. We’ll have double the money coming into our community. I think history says, with the county, that we have done a pretty stand-up, straightforward job bringing money to all municipalities, including the city,” he said.

He said funding through the county would come with a longer window to use the funds as well as the ability for municipalities to accumulate funding for larger projects.

“Funding on an annual basis can be accumulated and stackable. So you can do larger, more grand projects designed to help the low to moderate income group of people, such as infrastructure going into housing or sewage going into housing locations,” he said.

Gordon said if the city opted out, it would still receive its usual block grant funding but would be left to administer the funds itself and follow the state’s guidelines, including the three-year expiration on usage.

Councilwoman Lisa Quebedeaux asked if there’d be any guarantee the city still receives its usual annual funding if it opts in. Gordon said there is no guarantee as the county would choose what to fund on a project-by-project basis.

He said the city would also be able to reconsider whether it opts in or out of the countywide program on a three-year cycle.

He said the county will be looking into establishing a municipal application for CDBG funding to help choose projects.

“(The county) sits down and we review them and we actually sit with the individuals in your municipality that have accountability for those types of things; and then those decisions are made on a rolling basis as applications come in,” Gordon said.

However, with the level of uncertainty and the speed of the change, he said, the county needs a decision. However, council was left hesitant about the agreement.

“I wish there was more time to discuss this. I think this is a question that requires a lot of thought and a lot of consideration and also a lot of research into what this could look like over a three-year period,” Quebedeaux said.

Council ultimately voted 4-1 to opt out of the countywide agreement with plans to research and deliberate before the next opportunity in a few years.

While the city is unique in its direct entitlement to CDBG funding, five townships that previously received funds directly — Jackson, Summit, Jefferson, Penn and Slippery Rock — will no longer be eligible the way they used to be. Instead, they will have to choose whether to join with up to 51 other municipalities to vie for the $1.4 million the county receives.

Jefferson Township manager Leo Rosenbauer said Tuesday the township previously received over $100,000 per year in funding.

Those funds have previously been used for housing rehabilitation, as well as the removal of architectural barriers — primarily improving ADA compliance in Laura J. Doerr Memorial Park.

Rosenbauer said unlike other areas of the county, meeting the low and moderate income requirements for CDBG-funded projects was not yet a concern for the township.

“We haven’t, at this point, had any trouble,” he said. “Over recent years, we’ve definitely seen a reduction in the number as higher income people move in, but it didn’t seem like a problem that would impact us anytime soon.”

He said the new program will give the township eight years to use funds instead of three, but the township will be vying to get its projects chosen alongside dozens of municipalities.

“With the redesignation, any municipality that’s part of the program can request funds, so it’ll definitely be more of a selection process than before when we knew what we were getting,” Rosenbauer said.

He said he doesn’t anticipate impacts to smaller projects, like removing architectural barriers, but can’t speak with certainty until the new process is instated.

“The CDBG funding has been very valuable to Jefferson Township over the years,” he said.

The county has until Sept. 8 to hear back from every municipality regarding whether they are opting in or out. The application to receive urban county designation is due Sept. 15.