Butler County will receive more than twice as much from the recent American Rescue Plan Act as it did from last year's Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.

And it won't have to share with municipalities.

Leslie Osche, county commissioners chairwoman, said the county government is slated to receive roughly $37 million from the coronavirus-related stimulus package signed into law earlier this month, more than twice as much as the $16.8 million disbursed to it by the federal government under the CARES Act.

Unlike last time, the county will not be responsible for then dispensing a share of that money to the dozens of municipalities within Butler County. Last year, the county shared $7.99 million with the municipalities.

As such, the county's aid will be more than four times what it was in the CARES Act.

Section 9901 of the newer act designates four categories of expenditures for which counties and municipalities may use the funds: To respond to the negative economic impacts of COVID-19, including aid to households, small businesses, nonprofits and industries such as hospitality; to provide premium pay to essential public workers or provide grants to employers whose employees perform essential work; to respond to lessened revenue due to the pandemic; and to invest in water, sewage and broadband infrastructure.Because those are such broad categories, Osche said, the county must wait to receive guidance from the U.S. Department of the Treasury prior to expending its relief funds.“The challenge right now is, we know we have the water and sewer infrastructure projects that need to be addressed, but we're waiting on Treasury for guidance about the other bullet points,” she said.For Butler County, the bullet point about making up for lost revenue is a confusing one, Osche noted.“When I asked Ben (Holland, county controller,) for the update on how he thought the audited financial statements would end for 2020, the reality is, right now, in 2020 our revenue was up everywhere with the exception of some transfers, which we'll have to look into,” Osche said, adding the county would have to review where it stands in terms of the 2021 financial statements.One positive note is that even if it takes some time for guidance to come out and for the county commissioners to rectify that guidance with how it wishes to expend the funds, Butler County has more than three years to expend that money, Osche noted.The Rescue Plan Act puts a deadline of Dec. 31, 2024, on the expenditure of its allocated funds.As such, the commissioners chairwoman said, there is another positive in addition to leeway for time to reconcile expenditures with government guidance: The county can use the money in future years to account for long-lasting impacts of the pandemic.“It's possible we can, in 2021, experience different losses that we didn't experience in 2020,” Osche said.One goal Osche identified for the funds is to use it to ensure there will be no tax increases for county residents.“My hope would have been to be able to guarantee our taxpayers no tax increases for the next several years by dealing with some debt service and trying to make sure that we were set up to be able to meet budget demands for the next several years,” she said. “Right now, in looking at it, while we all work to figure out how to avoid those tax increases — which we haven't had yet in our time (in office) — I don't see a path to get there yet, practically.”But, she noted, keeping taxes steady is just one of several goals.“Our goal is to maximize it to the community's best benefit, not only for now but into the future, so that we can provide the greatest boost to the community and the county without having them face any tax increase going forward,” Osche said.

Unlike with the CARES Act, when the county disbursed about $7.99 million of its $16.8 million allocation, Butler County will not be tasked with making distributions to its constituent municipalities.Instead, the municipalities will receive their allocations directly from the state.One of the permitted uses under the new stimulus package, however, allows the county to provide assistance to “households, small businesses or nonprofits, or aid to impacted industries such as tourism, travel and hospitality.”As with Butler County's allocations to such bodies under the CARES Act, Osche said, it may do so again.“We can do grants to small businesses, nonprofits,” she said. “We can do that kind of thing again. We just haven't had the opportunity to be together long enough to sit down and put the whole plan together.”Another possibility for the funds is for distributions to “public benefit” corporations, “for instance, a transit agency or others like that,” Osche said.“All of that has to be dissected soon,” she added.And despite the county not being charged with distributing aid to its constituent municipalities, at least some will receive more this year than they had under the previous stimulus package.Cranberry Township, for example, may receive up to $3.1 million — about 150% of its 2020 allocation — according to township manager Dan Santoro, although he noted that figure comes from “estimates” and may change.Butler City clerk Mindy Gall said the city expects to receive $1,273,913.95, roughly 141% of what it received from the CARES Act.With the same restrictions on how the funds may be expended, however, the municipalities do not have concrete notions on how they expect to use that money.