RICHMOND — The town will be able to use its remaining American Rescue Plan Act money to fund several town hall projects including maintenance, conduct an engineering and environmental study for the 4 Richmond Townhouse Road property, benefit a local business and provide matching funds for an elevator at the police station.
Members of the Richmond Town Council unanimously approved the requests this week, showing support for the efforts put forth by Town Administrator Karen Pinch to utilize the town’s remaining $177,983.12 in unallocated ARPA funds.
“We need to wrap up the last of ARPA expenditures because all that money must be allocated by Dec. 31,” she explained at Tuesday’s council meeting. “I did my best to be proactive and post bids for a few quick, easy ways to spend that money that would include replacing shingles on roof, repainting the interior of town hall and finishing the porch.”
The town selected the lowest bidders, all who were vetted through other clients or previous service to the town, to conduct the separate work at town hall.
NSI Contractors Inc. was selected to conduct work on the roof, having submitted the lowest bid at $58,000. Pinch and Councilman Michael Colasante each noted that the company has flooring and roofing specialists, and that the company had already installed carpeting, providing quality work and finishing under budget.
“This is the same vendor who did our carpet, and they came in below bid for that and did a great job,” Pinch said. “Roofing is a different skill, however. We have since had conversations and they have their own crew for roofing as well. They also come along well recommended.”
ELCO Painting of North Kingstown was selected as vendor to conduct work to finish the porch area, with a bid of just $3,500 to complete work.
Although there was one lower bidder than Scholar Painting LLC to conduct the interior work, officials said the second company was unable to provide proof it used prevailing wage. Officials said that as a result the town was unable to consider them for this project, in accordance with state regulations.
Scholar Painting submitted a bid of $63,430, approximately $6,000 more than Shoreline, which was disqualified, and considerably less than the next lowest bid of $111,400.
By realizing savings in these projects, Pinch said the community was able to also reallocate other funds to assist with additional projects as well. The council allocated $5,000 as a small business grant for Mama Earth, a dry cleaning business on Kingstown Road, after the company had previously failed to use an approved grant. The company had recently approached the town to see whether the grant would still be available.
Another $20,000 will be allocated to the 4 Richmond Townhouse Road project.
“The company who is doing it now, in order to complete the environmental thing, they need to see the engineering work,” Pinch said. “That is not something we were told they needed in advance.”
The remaining funds, $27,803, were allocated to match a grant for installation of an elevator at the Richmond Police Station. That allocation leaves no remaining ARPA funds, officials said.