(a) In the event sufficient state funds have not been appropriated to provide the state's matching share of all eligible approved community, city, or town projects certified to the Chief Fiscal Officer of the State by the respective county judges or mayors of this state, the Chief Fiscal Officer of the State, with the advice of the Arkansas Rural Development Commission, shall approve payments for projects in the order in which each project application is filed with his office until all funds available during each fiscal year have been exhausted, shall defer until the next fiscal year the various projects for which adequate funds are not available during the preceding fiscal year, and shall give those projects priority in the order in which filed with the Office of Rural Advocacy of the Arkansas Rural Development Commission for funding from moneys appropriated by the General Assembly for that fiscal year.
(b)
(1) However, in the event project applications for the state's matching share of community, city, or town projects in any county are not submitted for the use of the funds available for community, city, or town projects in that county during any fiscal biennium, and application therefor has not been filed with the Office of Rural Advocacy within thirty (30) days prior to the end of the fiscal biennium, the Arkansas Rural Development Commission shall make the funds remaining for projects in that county available for approved community, city, or town projects in other counties which have applied for more project matching funds than were available.
(2) The Arkansas Rural Development Commission shall give priority in the allocation of the unused project funds to approved projects in other counties in the order in which applications were received for the projects.