Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funds

ARPA allocated $5.3 billion in Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funds (CSFRF) to Massachusetts.

The US Treasury has provided the following guidelines for how Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds may be spent. Recipients may use these funds to:

• Support public health expenditures, by, for example, funding COVID-19 mitigation efforts, medical expenses, behavioral healthcare, and certain public health and safety staff
• Address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, including economic harms to workers, households, small businesses, impacted industries, and the public sector
• Replace lost public sector revenue, using this funding to provide government services to the extent of the reduction in revenue experienced due to the pandemic
• Provide premium pay for essential workers, offering additional support to those who have and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service in critical infrastructure sectors
• Invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure, making necessary investments to improve access to clean drinking water, support vital wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, and to expand access to broadband internet

Within these overall categories, recipients have broad flexibility to decide how best to use this funding to meet the needs of their communities.

Process of Allocating State Fiscal Recovery Funds

The Legislature has committed to a public hearings process to determine how to allocate the $5.3billion in CSFRF, which will allow experts and members of the public to testify.

Information on upcoming public Ways and Means hearings to allocate the $5.3billion in CSFRF will be posted at Joint Committee on Ways and Means as the hearing dates are finalized.