Modesto will reallocate $7.3M of its pandemic relief funding. Who will benefit?

Modesto plans to reallocate nearly $7.3 million of the $45.9 million it received in federal pandemic relief, and projects that improve children’s lives are expected to receive funding.

The City Council’s Finance Committee has recommended the Boys and Girls Clubs of Stanislaus County and First Tee of the Central Valley, which teaches golf and life skills to young people, receive $250,000 each for projects the two organizations are pursuing on land they share at the city’s Dryden Golf Course.

The committee also is recommending $600,000 for The Awesome Spot, an inclusive playground at Beyer Community Park. An inclusive playground is one where children with disabilities can play side by side with able-bodied peers, or disabled parents can join their kids on the equipment.

Parent Rachel Loredo is leading the community effort to build the playground. While work on the playground has started, the project needs more funding. The project has raised a little more than half of its estimated $6.5 million cost, according to the city. That’s not including the $600,000.

“We are definitely excited,” Loredo said in a text message, but she declined to say more until the City Council approves Modesto’s 2024-25 budget, which includes the nearly $7.3 million reallocation. The budget starts July 1, and the council typically approves the city budget in June.

First Tee — operating under the auspices of the nonprofit Del Rio CC Foundation — will use its money to help pay for a roughly $400,000 metal multipurpose building whose uses includes hitting golf balls, baseballs and softballs off tees and into nets. First Tee Executive Director John Griston said the building could open by the end of this year.

The Boys and Girls Clubs would use its money as part of a roughly $800,000 project to put in two full-court basketball courts as well as benches, picnic tables and outdoor concrete pingpong tables.

Boys and Girls President and CEO Craig Orona said his nonprofit has raised nearly half of the money, which is enough for the site work and the basketball courts. He said a timeline for when the courts will be built is being developed.

The Boys and Girls Clubs operates its West Modesto Club-teen center in a modular building at Dryden. The club serves about two dozen kids on weekday afternoons. The Boys and Girls Clubs also has clubs at 11 Modesto elementary and middle schools. First Tee also operates out of the modular building.

The $45.9 million came from the American Rescue Plan Act, which President Joe Biden signed in March 2021. Modesto received half of its ARPA money in 2021 and the other half in 2022.

The city wants to reallocate the nearly $7.3 million for such reasons as it won’t meet the timelines for obligating and spending the money, it ended up not needing as much money for a project, or it found other funding. Any ARPA money not spent by the end of 2026 must be returned to the federal government.

The Finance Committee approved city staff’s reallocations and recommended the full City Council approve them as part of the 2024-25 budget. The reallocations include:

▪ $200,000 to the Friends of the Modesto Library, which is trying to raise $3 million to augment Stanislaus County’s $18.1 million renovation of its downtown Modesto branch library, opened in 1971. County officials have said the project is expected to begin in spring 2025.

▪ $1.6 million to the city’s $12.2 million Cesar Chavez Park renovation and $1.4 million to city’s $11.4 million renovation of Martin Luther King Jr. Park. Modesto went out to bid Tuesday for the Chavez Park renovation, while work on the MLK Park renovation is in the design phase.

▪ $500,000 toward the purchase of a wildland fire engine to replace the Fire Department’s 20-year-old one.

▪ $667,000 toward the $9.5 million project to replace the Dryden Golf Course clubhouse, which was destroyed in an August 2020 fire. The city has $4 million in insurance proceeds for the project, which will include a new clubhouse, restaurant, security lighting, new putting green, parking lot, outdoor event space and driving range. The project is in its design phase.

▪ $25,000 for the Gallo Center for the Arts’ Family Fun Fest.

▪ $2 million to reserves to the general fund for the city’s 2024-25 budget, which starts July 1. The general fund makes up about a third of the city’s annual operating budget. The proposed 2024-24 general fund is $194.3 million, with about 82% of that designated for police and fire services.

Modesto has spent or allocated its remaining ARPA funding on such efforts as $1.8 million to the Downtown Streets Team, which helps homeless people, $2.85 million to tackle the maintenance backlog in city trees, $6.55 million for bonuses of as much as $7,500 for city employees who worked during the pandemic, $1 million to help small businesses and $500,000 to the Modesto Children’s Museum.