. >> reporter: the american rescue plan, or arpa, passed last spring has helped portland with some of lost revenue. >> in our current budget, we used arpa funding to help bridge the gap for municipal revenues that we did not see coming in. so, we used about $8.5 million in order to help us balance our budget. so, the fact that we needed to use federal money to plug local revenue gaps is telling, and i think we'll see that again next year and maybe even the year after. >> reporter: so, as the mayor, do you consider portland to be in a period of recovery? are we still in the middle of all of this? >> i would say both. i would say we're definitely recovering, and we deal day-to-day deal with challenges that have resulted from covid and all of the myriad impacts of this pandemic. >> reporter: and then, there are portland's most covid-challenged businesses, like the state theatre. when we met general manager lauren wayne in 2020, the outlook was grim. >> we had to lay off most of our-- if not all of our part- time staff and our seasonal staff. and that was-- that was really hard. >> report