In the nearly 2 trillion dollar American rescue plan Youngstown stands to get more than $88 million dollars from federal government over the next two years.

For cities and counties it means an unprecented amount of money, more than 100 million between Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.

Youngstown's windfall will come in two stages, 44 million dollars this year and 44 million next year.

The chair of Youngstown's finance committee tells 21 News, handling that much cash is going to mean careful planning and a lot of listening.

"What we don't want to happen is this money just start to become, you know, money grabs for individual departments or people or plans or anything like that," said Lauren McNally, Chairman of Youngstown's Finance Committee.

Mayor Tito Brown says he plans on getting input from community organizations, as well as department heads, but ultimately council will have to decide where the money goes.

"Just coming outside of a pandemic, I want to make sure that we use some of that money to recover from some of our small business and individuals who are hurting," said Mayor of Youngstown, Tito Brown. "That we rely on as a city, to provide quality of life," he said.

There's a 2024 deadline to spend all of the money. Brown is looking to begin with infrastructure and reducing food deserts, but other city officials say the next steps for deciding where the money will go, can get a little tricky.

"There's seven people on city council and then there's an entire administration behind that," said McNally. "So that's a lot of people and I don't think it should be council and the administration sitting down and coming up with this plan, I think we're part of the conversation," she said.

McNally says she hopes to see the city hire an outside consultant to help form a comprehensive plan for how every dollar will be spent. Brown says if they get this right, it's an opportunity to build a new legacy for the city of Youngstown.