City of St. Louis Reaches ARPA Performance Deadline and Moves Into Processing Final Invoices

September 30, 2026, marked the City of St. Louis' deadline for contractors, subrecipients and grantees to complete work and incur costs under their American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) contracts and awards. The milestone closes the delivery phase of the City's $498,076,054 allocation of Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). It opens a final, three-month closeout period before the federal expenditure deadline of December 31, 2026.

Under ARPA, the City received one of the largest per-resident ARPA allocations of any major U.S. city: $498 million. A resident Stimulus Advisory Board, a revived Citizen Advisory Committee and a seven-language survey answered by more than 5,000 residents shaped how the money was split.

Over five years, the City appropriated its full allocation through 17 ordinances. While many cities placed their ARPA funds in a few large buckets; St. Louis spread its allocation across 416 distinct projects, and executed more than 868 contracts approved by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment.

"When I took office, 55% of the ARPA funds were not spent and we had 18 months left to spend those funds, or face returning them to the federal government," said Mayor Cara Spencer. "Our administration took this mandate seriously, starting weekly tracking meetings, and consistent reporting. This year alone we paved 34 miles of road, replaced 5,300 feet of water pipe, and updated more than 70 hydrants."

The vast number of projects and contracts was a new challenge for the City. More than a dozen City departments and agencies managed them including the ARPA Compliance Team, the City Counselor's Office, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, the Board of Aldermen, the Comptroller's Office, the Budget Division, and the Treasurer's Office.

"Behind each of these 416 projects is a City employee who wrote a scope, reviewed an invoice, checked a payroll or walked a job site," Mayor Spencer said. "They took on federal compliance requirements they had never seen, on top of their regular jobs. St. Louis owes them real thanks."

Many programs were delivered by community organizations, public agencies or contracted private firms. No ARPA program was run by City employees alone. Departments built a network of more than 50 nonprofits, public agencies and private firms to deliver vaccines, food, housing, legal help, behavioral health care, youth jobs, small business grants and construction. Through those partnerships, the City put the dollars to work in extraordinary ways. While a more comprehensive report is forthcoming, here are a few highlights:

• Improved more than 30 miles of main roadways, including Kingshighway, Grand Ave., Jefferson Ave., Goodfellow, Union, and Broadway, and overhauled the city's 10 most dangerous intersections
• Supported tornado recovery with home weatherization, home repairs, home inspections, asbestos surveys, title searches, and program and case management
• Installed free public Wi-Fi across downtown streets, city parks, and community recreation centers
• Supported more than 45 first-time home buyers with down payment assistance
• Launched the Office of Violence Prevention and empowered local youth by financing youth-led summer initiatives focused on health literacy, leadership development and physical wellness
• Replaced aging police vehicles, upgraded ambulances and support vehicles, renovated multiple police buildings, and provided funding for a new unified 911 Dispatch Center to enhance public safety efforts
• Deployed community health workers and mobile health units directly into high-need neighborhoods, providing health screenings and preventive care connections

"Our community partners mobilized, often in neighborhoods where the need was greatest and the paperwork hardest," Spencer said. "They proved what St. Louis can do when the City and its neighbors work as one team."

With the performance period over, the City now turns to recording every eligible cost before the federal deadline. November 1, 2026, is the deadline for departments to submit invoices, which leaves time for invoice approvals, including resubmittals if additional documentation is needed.

As of Tuesday, October 6, 2026, $462,482,252 has been spent and processed, with $35,593,802 left to process before the deadline of December 31, 2026.

"We are confident that we've got a path to ensure every dime is spent and accounted for," said Mayor Spencer.

Any expense not recorded in Oracle by December 31, 2026 will be subject to clawback by the U.S. Treasury. As projects have closed or stalled, the City has moved unspent balances to work that could be completed on time. Most recently, Ordinance 72125 (March 2026) directed $5.5 million to Water Division infrastructure replacement and repair.