American Rescue Plan Coronavirus State and Local Relief Funds Compliance Guidance
Recently, both the U.S. Treasury and the New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) provided American Rescue Fund Coronavirus State and Local Relief Funds compliance resources for municipal governments, including webinars, best practices, and checklists. Below is a summary of the guidance provided. We suggest you review this information with your chief financial officer and administrator.
U.S. Treasury Guidance
The U.S. Treasury recently conducted a series of webinars to provide an overview of the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Compliance and Reporting Guidance issued on June 17, 2021.
Municipalities should review the webinars with their professionals for compliance information. The webinars are based on population and whether a municipality has a population less than 250,000 and receives more than $5 million in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, a municipality has a population less than 250,000 and receives less than $5 million in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, and municipalities with a population greater than 250,000.
For municipalities planning to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funds for Emergency Rental Assistance Programs, the U.S. Treasury has provided a list of best practices for Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) programs that have been collected from ERA grantees across the country. The list includes Partnerships in Program Implementation, Culturally and Linguistically Competent Outreach, Intentional Landlord Engagement, Partnerships with Broader Eviction Diversion Programs, Collaboration with Local Utility Companies, Adjusting Program Strategies to Meet Local Needs, Making the Application Process Simple and User Friendly, Using Fact-Specific Proxies to Establish Applicant Income, Automation Supporting Application Prioritization, and Data-Driven Program Strategies and are intended to speed up program implementation, more efficiently deliver program benefits, enhance program integrity, and improve tenant and landlord access to programs.
New Jersey State Office of the State Comptroller Guidance
The New Jersey State Office of the State Comptroller recently released guidance to New Jersey’s local governments that include best practices, tips, and compliance resources for the use of Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. OSC also released an internal controls checklist that can be used by local governments as a starting point for reviewing internal controls.
To sign up for future COVID-19 updates from OSC’s COVID-19 Compliance and Oversight Project, please send an email to the office at COVID.Oversight@osc.nj.gov..
Contact: Paul Penna, Legislative Analyst, ppenna@njlm.org or 609-695-3481, x110.