The city of Bryan as a whole procured nearly $2.7 million in grant funding last year that helped the community and taxpayers, Mayor Carrie Schlade recently told council.
Schlade delivered her State of the City report to council this week and applauded the city department heads for being able to secure that much grant money.
“I think that’s something, almost $2.7 million wrote back into the community because the department heads are being very proactive in competitive grant programs and writing really good applications, and it’s really something they should get recognition for,” Schlade said.
The engineering department accounted for $2 million of that total, including projects like Horton Heights ($900,000 in grants), Safe Routes to School ($337,000) and a sanitary sewer replacement ($275,000).
In addition, the engineering department received $245,000 in Critical Infrastructure funds and $275,000 in Ohio Public Works funds.
The police department secured $271,000 in grants, including $145,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for officer salaries for two years, $75,000 in ARPA funding for retention bonuses, $42,000 for body worn cameras and $8,000 for bulletproof vests for officers.
The parks and recreation department brought in $284,000 in grants, including $100,000 from the Bryan Area Foundation, $154,000 from Game Time, $2,500 from West Unity Area Foundation and $2,000 from the Walmart Community Grant.
The fire department was awarded $93,000 in grants, including $44,000 for MARCS radios, $34,000 for body worn cameras and $15,000 from the state fire marshal for training.
Upcoming projects for Bryan include $600,000 in the pavement program going to Autumn Chase subdivision, Union Place subdivision, portions of East Village Addition and Eastland Woods subdivision.
“Lincoln Park Playground, we are looking at a late spring completion date on that,” Schlade said. “We are very excited about that new addition to our community, that will be a very fun day to bring in our community and northwest Ohio and have a big fun party.”
Schlade is still hopeful proposed upgrades to the city’s Amtrak station will take place though they have been delayed.
“There’s a little bit of a federal back and forth with Amtrak and Norfolk Southern that we’re working through right now,” Schlade said.
She also said the design work and application for another Safe Routes to School should be done this year, which would continue on with the previous sidewalk project.
Schlade reported the total budget for the city for 2024 is $57 million, down from $59 million in 2023. However, she also mentioned that budget included nearly $2 million in grants the city had to front for the Horton Heights project and then had the money reimbursed.
The carryover balance from 2023 was $1.9 million, which was its lowest total since 2018.
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