With a new fiscal year underway, Butler County is now accepting applications for the county's infrastructure bank program, now in its third year of operations.

Mark Gordon, the county's chief of economic development and planning, said the program, which provides low- and subsidized-interest loans to municipalities in need of funding for infrastructure projects, will work with and accept applications from municipalities through January or early February, with an eye on disbursing funds in late August or early September.

During last year's round of infrastructure bank loans, the county provided funding for part of Zelienople's streetscape project and some business district projects in neighboring Jackson Township. Two years ago, the infrastructure bank funded two projects in Cranberry Township and part of the streetscape and Sullivan Run flood control projects in Butler.

Altogether, the infrastructure bank has disbursed roughly $18 million in its inaugural two years.

The funds that run the program stem from Act 13 impact fees that the county receives from unconventional gas well building. Gordon said that while some places opt to spend that money on consumables, Butler elected to make a more permanent change with its expenditures.

“Our approach was, let's see if we can do something meaningful with those monies, and meaningful in terms of, well, maybe we can make those funds available at a reduced interest rate to municipalities and municipal authorities in the county, for infrastructure-related projects ... those types of projects that they otherwise would not be able to maybe do,” he said. “And when we're done with those, we have something. We've created an asset.”

Butler is one of two counties in the state with its own infrastructure bank, according to Gordon, with the other being in Dauphin County in central Pennsylvania.