WASHINGTON, D.C. - It’s been nearly three months since President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan. Now, local governments are trying to figure out how to spend millions of dollars they received in the relief package.

At its peak, 1.3 million state and local government employees were laid off or lost their jobs during the pandemic, according to the a Feburary 2021 report from Marketplace citing the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

To bring them back, Biden included $350 billion to bail out state and local governments in the American Rescue Plan.

“The money we’re… going to be distributing now is going to make it possible for an awful lot of educators, first responders, sanitation workers to go back to work,” Biden said on May 10.

That $350 billion can be spent in many other ways, according to recent interim guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department. That includes COVID-19 mitigation and vaccination efforts… and replacing lost tax revenue caused by COVID.

“For 3,000 counties in America, we’re seeing 3,000 different ideas about how to improve their residents lives locally,” said Mark Ritacco, the director of government affairs for the National Association of Counties, a Washington, D.C.-based non-governmental organization representing counties.

But, according to Ritacco, that money can be spent a number of other ways. Among the most notable: counties and localities can invest in water, sewer, and broadband internet infrastructure.

“Things that we don’t necessarily see every day, but can make a community much more economically dynamic and make residents happy,” Ritacco said.

For smaller rural municipalities without water and sewer systems, spending the money becomes a little more complicated. But, the Treasury’s interim guidance is broad, meaning local officials could use it to fix roads or fund the municipality’s fire department.

“If you have lost revenue, you can use money for any governmental service,” Ritacco said. “Any governmental service is infrastructure, in some cases.”

Local leaders have until July 16 to submit comments about the Treasury’s interim guidance. You can read more about the Treasury’s interim guidance here.