By Aleasha Sandley, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
aleasha.sandley@heraldbulletin
ANDERSON - After proposing projects that would use more than $75.5 million in federal stimulus funds, the city is starting to see some of its efforts to secure the money pay off.
It recently was awarded $560,200 through the U.S. Department of Energy for updates to city street lights, making them more energy and cost efficient and other energy efficiency measures.
Much of the money comes from Anderson being an entitlement community, which is based on population and economic need, Board of Works Chairman Greg Graham said. Entitlement communities don't generally have to compete as hard for some funds.
"We have pretty much determined our priority's going to street light improvement," Graham said. "We're not sure we can do them all."
It now takes $600,000 a year to run the city's street lights, but changing them all to LED lights will have significant, permanent cost savings that will add up over time.
The city could use some of the grant to make energy improvements at City Hall and Fire Department, Graham said.
Economic Development Deputy Director Diana Priser said city officials would meet Wednesday to officially determine how to use the grant.
No one in City Hall appeared to have been keeping direct track of how much stimulus money different departments were receiving. Priser said she had started a spreadsheet and city officials had been meeting to keep on top of the issue.
Graham said the way stimulus money has been distributed - through various state and federal departments - made it difficult to track.
"There are branches and then there are limbs off the branches and there are different pots of money off each one of them, so working through it is confusing," he said.
Jerry Bridges, who heads the Madison County Council of Governments, said his organization had received $3.2 million to dole out to communities with shovel-ready projects within a federally-declared urban area, which includes Anderson.
Anderson requested $2 million of the money to widen 67th Street as it stretches near the Flagship Enterprise Center for more commercial development. Bridges said the Council of Government's board of directors has yet to decide what projects, submitted from various communities in the area, will receive funding.
"We don't have them all yet," he said. "(Anderson is) the biggest player in the pot."
All the projects funded through the Council of Governments will be highway improvements, and many of them submitted were resurfacing projects, as those often are the only ones local governments can get through to shovel-ready phase by next year.
"It's based on what you can get done by March 1, and there's not a lot you can get done if it's not fairly far away," Bridges said. "It's not, 'I have a project; let's do it.' There's a lot of steps to getting a project through federal aid. The more complicated the project is, the harder it is to get through the process."
Other city departments working on stimulus fund applications include Water Pollution Control - for which Superintendent Nara Manor asked for more than $15 million - Community Development, Parks Department and the Anderson Municipal Airport, Priser said.
The city also has applied for $1.5 million for a municipal bus depot, Graham said, and the Madison County Community Health Center was awarded $198,420 to hire new staff.