Trenton's American Rescue Plan Project

Thankfully, the Trenton Board of Education received its own direct portion - $44 million -  of ARP funds that they will likely use for exactly this purpose.

The current ARP spending plan on this page also includes a proposal for $3.12 million in youth development and career opportunities. 

Yes, the current ARP plan includes a "Fight the Blight" program seeking to empower community groups and lower income residents to get on the job training while rehabilitating and maintaining vacant properties.

Unrelated to ARP spending, multiple affordable housing projects, including Turner Pointe, Jennings Village, and Vessel are set to come online this year.

For us, its using the funds on public safety, blight reduction, local businesses, and repairing aging infrastructure. All of the proposed projects under the existing ARP plan fit under those general categories. We have also reached out to the Trenton community for their expertise on how these funds can best help the city. Those ideas are included on this page.

Most pending projects are including in our draft ARP rescue plan, which can be found in the Plans, Presentations, and Guidance section on this page. However, there have been some changes based on emergent investments needed for water infrastructure and  public safety that will require some changes to that plan. We will likely release an updated plan within the next two weeks.

Generally, all spending ideas for ARP have come from the Mayor or City department directors, City Council members, community groups, residents associations, and Trentonians directly on this website and other sources. Final decisions are made based on long term viability, adherence to federal regulations, or an emergent need like imminent utility repair.

Ultimately, city council has to approve every expenditure under ARP.  After one of the ideas from the sources is reviewed to see if its legal under existing federal regulations, it is put on a resolution, debated among city council at a public meeting, then voted for approval. 

Unfortunately, we can only speak to the money that was allocated directly to the City of Trenton. We're not sure how the state, counties, and other NJ cities are allocating their share of the funds.

Unfortunately, we can only speak to the money that was allocated directly to the City of Trenton. We're not sure how the state, counties, and other NJ cities are allocating their share of the funds. 

Many of these figures come straight from a department by department review with Directors and senior staff who had researched these projects and associated costs long before the ARP funding was announced in hopes that one day they would be funded by a future city bonding ordinance or additional state or federal revenue. For items such as water billing, the $6 million in costs are not to improve the billing systems (a bonding ordinance approved earlier this year that will upgrade the meters will help do that over the next few years), but instead to replace revenue the utility lost over the last year due to COVID-19 (staffing shortages, customer economic hardships, state moratorium on collections, etc...). Replacing lost revenue is one of the major eligible categories per the ARP U.S. Treasury guidance. 

Yes. While the City already has millions of dollars available to take down abandoned properties (bids are going out for 20 properties at this moment), we have proposed using American Rescue Plan funds to restore the long-vacant West Side Plaza shopping center and create a "Fight the Blight" program that will work with community and reentry groups to create job training that will help more Trenton contractors become certified to repair or take down abandoned structures.