MODESTO — The Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday heard and approved updates for plans to spend $107 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds awarded to the county coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The county developed a plan for the funds in March 2023, with $55.8 million earmarked for community infrastructure, $30 million set aside for economic development and job creation, $5 million pegged to create a community development corporation, $5.2 million to support families’ and individuals’ access to COVID related assistance, $10 million for budget balancing, and $1 million for administrative support.
“Through June 2025, among all of the partners, we’ve expended $38.3 million of the $107 million,” said Angelica Ramos, deputy executive officer in the county CEO’s office. “There’s been a lot of planning that went in on the front end; the spending is really occurring here toward the end of the period for the funds.”
In August 2022, the board approved an initial outlay of $50 million in ARPA funds toward infrastructure needs — the plan was revised six months later to include an additional $5.8 million — within 41 urban pockets and 13 county communities.
In Turlock, the Kenwood-Starr project will be out to bid in about two weeks and is fully funded, with an estimated total cost of $4.368 million (as of June 30). Construction is expected to begin this winter, according to county staff.
District 2 Supervisor Vito Chiesa said the time is right for digging into infrastructure projects, despite construction costs being up 24 percent over the past couple of years.
“The need far outweighs the once-in-a-lifetime money,” said Chiesa. “We can only do this incrementally, but this is something we haven’t done in many, many years, or even had the opportunity to do.”
Another investment mentioned was the $12 million for Crows Landing Industrial Business Park (the former Naval Auxiliary Landing Field) — 1,528 square acres that will be developed in three phases over 30-40 years and create more than 14,000 living-wage jobs, according to the staff report.
At buildout, the park would include more than 14 million square feet of vertical building space, and a 370-acre public use airport.
The project will require improved storage, pumping, and treatment of water at the CLIBP site, plus a water main in Fink Road between the site and Crows Landing wells, and water-well facility improvement in the Crows Landing community.
Later, Stanislaus 2030 executive director Amanda Hughes updated the board on the public-private partnership that was created to spur the county’s economy and is organized around five specific areas — small-business support, governance and capacity building, traded sector development, childcare expansion, talent development).
The supervisors previously approved $18 million to invest in those five areas.
“When I was here a year ago, I shared a report that talked about the dramatic child care shortage we have in our county,” said Hughes. “We have one slot for every five kids that needs childcare.”
An aggressive 10-year plan was developed in hopes of creating 1,000 new child care businesses and 12,000 new child care slots, all while delivering a $400 million jolt to the economy.
To date, 98 prospective providers have completed coursework, 87 have received their childcare license, and 83 have opened childcare businesses, resulting in 664 childcare slots for an anticipated $22 million boon for the economy.
