For this week’s rundown:

• Highlights of Treasury’s final rule for ARPA’s state/local government COVID recovery programs
• Announcement of NSDC special report and webinar covering programs in the new infrastructure law AND an NSDC tool to help special districts track down project funding opportunities
• Planning for 2022 member conferences
• A few quick hits and Coalition announcements

But First – A Special Welcome!
NSDC welcomes our newest associate member! A special welcome and hello to the Washington Association of Sewer and Water Districts.

NSDC Publishes Infrastructure Law Resources, Announces IIJA Webinar and ‘Project Idea Portal’
The National Special Districts Coalition has published a special report outlining newly authorized and updated programs included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) as well as “project idea portal” for assistance in identifying potential funding opportunities. NSDC will host a webinar next month for members to provide an overview of IIJA.

The NSDC special report (attached to this email) includes brief summaries of IIJA’s 45 new federal programs and details 36 programs the law revised/updated. Each summary serves as a grant profile provided by The Ferguson Group (TFG), which offers a suite of grant services to Coalition members. As many of IIJA’s programs are in the development process, the guide provides advanced details for districts to identify potential funding sources and prepare to act once application periods open.

NSDC’s Advocacy Team will host a webinar covering IIJA and provide a deeper dive into key programs outlined in the special report. The virtual event will be live Wednesday, February 23, at 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PT. NSDC’s special district members are invited to join to learn more about programs of interest and engage in Q&A.

NSDC Webinar: Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act Overview
Live Zoom Webinar
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET / Noon – 1:30 p.m. PT
Reserve your attendance today

In partnership with TFG, NSDC has established a “project idea portal” for districts to submit projects for which federal funding opportunities are sought. Districts are welcome to submit details of the project via the webform, which TFG’s grants team will review and work with the district to identify and apply for open grants.

Let me or @Kristi More know if you have any questions on this.

Treasury Issues Final Rule for ARPA’s State, Local COVID Relief Funding. Here are some highlights.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury issued on Thursday its final rule for ARPA’s $350 billion Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (CSLFRF). While districts are not eligible for direct CSLFRF funding, it is vital to stay abreast of program details for districts to advocate – either locally or at the state level – and demonstrate their eligible needs for funding.

Likely of most interest to many districts, the final rule includes an expansion of necessary expenditures in response to COVID-19’s health and economic impacts – including building capacity for the public sector workforce and standards for using funds for COVID response –, provides greater flexibility on the use of funds backfilling revenue loss, solidifies premium pay eligibility guidelines, and establishes a test for what is considered “necessary investments” in water and sewer infrastructure (increasing the list of what is eligible).

Read more on the NSDC blog: U.S. Treasury’s Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Final Rule Expands Flexibility and Eligibility (Jan. 7). Please feel free to share content of the blog post with your members (as always).

Call for Legislative Presentation Requests
If your association is interested in having an NSDC legislative or grants presentation(s) at an upcoming conference, please let us know so we can plan 2022 accordingly. Cole Karr, NSDC Federal Advocacy Coordinator, and/or (by request) NSDC Advocacy Team partners The Ferguson Group (TFG) and Paragon Government Relations are able to present to your membership on the latest out of DC and much more.

To request NSDC presentations, please email me at colek@nationalspecialdistricts.org with the dates of the conference/workshop, location, style of presentation (breakout session, panel discussion, general session, etc.), and whether the request is the advocacy team and/or the grants team (TFG).

Quick Hits

SCOTUS Hears the Case for Workplace Vaccines – As NSDC has been tracking, the federal OSHA and CMS workplace vaccine mandates have had their day in the highest court in the land. OSHA’s mandate would impact some special districts in California, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming; while CMS would impact all districts receiving CMS services. General consensus: the majority of justices don’t seem convinced to justify the mandates. Read more reporting on this story at: POLITCO, the Washington Post, and The Hill.

About that NSDC member forum – Most everyone receiving this email are automatically members of the NSDC Member Forum. We’ve received some reports of issues accessing the forum despite being signed in to the website (we are still working out the bugs). For those successfully logging in and the “forum” tab does not appear at the top, please attempt copy and pasting “https://www.nationalspecialdistricts.org/forum” into your search bar after signing in. All in all, please let me know if there are any problems signing in at all. Until the wrinkles are ironed out, these types of messages will be emailed instead of posted in the community.

Help a kid get some money for college… but make sure they know about special districts first – Details of the Districts Make the Difference student video contest are coming this month! The program is an expansion of the California Special Districts Association’s student video scholarship contest that offers three scholarships to students with the best public service announcement-style videos. Stay tuned! For preliminary questions on the contest, contact Kristin Withrow at kristinw@csda.net.

We had an awesome year! – In case you missed it: Here’s a link to our year in review post.