ROGERS – City Council members on Tuesday approved a resolution to take the first step in partnering with Northwest Arkansas Council to help the association continue its covid-19 vaccination and public education campaign .

According to Mayor Greg Hines, the resolution also appropriates up to $ 69,908 of the city’s money from the American Rescue Plan Act Fund for campaigns. The agreement will last for a year.

The Northwest Arkansas Council worked with local healthcare providers at the start of the pandemic on the Safe and Strong public education campaign in English, Spanish and Marshallese, and also worked to bring clinics of immunization to communities in the region, said Ryan Cork, executive director of the Council’s Health Care Transformation Division.

The initial efforts were funded by private funds and philanthropy, Cork said in an interview. Now, the Northwest Arkansas Council is hoping to partner with Benton and Washington counties, as well as the cities of Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville to continue the campaigns, he said.

Springdale City Council on Tuesday agreed to provide $ 87,176 to support the Northwest Arkansas council’s efforts. Hines said he expects other counties and towns in northwest Arkansas to bring similar resolutions to their governing bodies in the coming weeks.

Support from local governments is helping the Northwest Arkansas Council continue to provide immunization clinics, testing clinics and monoclonal antibody infusions and continue the public communication campaign, Cork said in a statement. interview. While the board plans to continue offering pop-up vaccination clinics to any event or organization that requests them, the association’s public education campaign has evolved based on local research, a t -he declares.

Rogers and other local cities and counties will contribute $ 1 per capita, according to the most recent census data, Hines said. Rogers received around $ 11 million in the last round of stimulus funding, he said.

It is possible that the Northwest Arkansas Council will receive additional private or public funding that could reduce the amount Rogers has to contribute, Hines said.

City attorney Bonnie Bridges said she was working with city and county attorneys across the region to reach comprehensive and cohesive deals.

Other actions taken at Tuesday’s meeting:

• Approved the increase in the schedule of an airport operations technician from 30 to 40 hours per week and the modification of the budget to allocate $ 9,652 from the airport reserves for the changes.

• Approved authorizing the property tax rate of 2.4 million for the year 2021, to be collected in 2022. There is no rate change from 2019-2020 or 2020-2021, according to CFO Casey Wilhelm.

• Filed an ordinance to change the zoning of 15.6 acres near the intersection of 31st Street South and Green Acres Drive from the agricultural zoning district to the downtown commercial zone and changing the overall growth map .