AMHERST — Town officials are undertaking a plan to ensure the remaining $3.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds yet to be spent are not lost during a change in presidential administrations in Washington, D.C., and possible punitive actions against politically left-leaning communities.

Town Manager Paul Bockelman told the Town Council on Monday that he is taking a “defensive posture” with regard to using ARPA money, in part because Amherst is a college town, a sanctuary community and a “blue town in a blue state.”

“I’m fearful of clawback of funds,” Bockelman said. “What we’re doing now is to secure every dime we’ve gotten from the federal government so we don’t lose it.”

He explained that the plan will involve revenue replacement and ARPA money falling to free cash.

“What that means is it will probably fall to free cash and any money that comes out of it will have to be appropriated by the Town Council,” Bockelman said.

“We’re trying to be cautious and recognize the rules the Biden administration has put in place to use (ARPA) over next two years may be rescinded,” he explained.

Bockelman said the projects identified, including working on a youth empowerment center and renovations to the Senior Center, will be updated by January. In March, the plans for the final use of ARPA include $2.5 million for upgrades at the Bangs Community Center, $1 million for solar canopies at Fort River School — the site of the new elementary school — and $300,000 for roads and sidewalks.

The brief discussion about ARPA money came two weeks after District 3 Councilor Hala Heather Lord, on behalf of At Large Councilor Ellisha Walker, read a statement into at the council’s Dec. 2 meeting observing that the COVID pandemic caused disproportionate harm to Black and brown people and businesses and urging that ARPA money not fall to free cash, and proposing a commitment to the Black Business Association of Amherst Area.

“The ARPA funds were specifically provided to municipalities like ours to help mitigate and address these hardships,” the statement reads. “It is our responsibility as a town to ensure these funds are distributed equitably, targeting those who were and continue to be most impacted.”

The Black Business Association of Amherst Area, joined by Community Safety and Social Justice Committee, is continuing to raise public awareness to what its members view as inequitable distribution of ARPA funds.

Pat Ononibaku, president of the business association’s board, wrote in an email that inclusive economic recovery assistance in Amherst has not been provided and that there have been discriminatory practices going against equity, fairness, economic justice and inclusion that the ARPA funds was designed to promote.

“Transferring the remaining ARPA funds to the town free cash will harm BIPOC community most impacted by COVID illness, deaths, health care disparities, joblessness and other economic instabilities,” Ononbaku wrote in an email.

Previously, Bockelman said the $11.9 million Amherst received was far less than the $22 million Northampton got, and that the town had to be selective in how the money was used. In addition to supporting affordable housing projects and improvements to municipal parks, money has already gone to help low-income people install heat pumps at their homes and to study and develop a youth empowerment center.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.