LOC News
The Latest News on ARPA
The U.S. Treasury recently informed American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) recipients that due to budget constraints, the Treasury would be shutting down its call and email assistance center where recipients could request and obtain personalized guidance regarding the use of funds. The League of Oregon Cities (LOC) has been in contact with Oregon’s federal delegation, and we are hopeful that budget provisions will be included in any year-end package to allow the Treasury to use previously appropriated funds to restart the call and email centers operation.
The LOC expects as we get towards the next April 30 reporting deadline for smaller cities, this shutdown will cause some issues, especially for new staff who did not complete the required reporting last spring. The LOC will continue to help cities stay in compliance and members can contact the LOC with ARPA related concerns or questions at the contact below. The Treasury has also rolled out some new self-help resources, and those can be found here.
The U.S. Treasury website is still the best source of information for spending guidance and information on reporting responsibilities. The Compliance and Reporting Guidance document was last updated in September, the Project and Expenditure Report User Guide was updated in October, and Treasury added an Alternative Compliance Examination Engagement Report User Guide in August that could be helpful for cities in meeting audit requirements.
Timelines for reporting are shown in the table below, which was taken from page 15 of the Compliance and Reporting Guidance. That document also has more information on page 18 about specific reporting deadlines and what spending periods are covered. Cities that received less than $10 million are required to complete a Project and Expenditure Report annually on April 30, and cities that received more than $10 million are required to report quarterly (with the next report being due at the end of January 2023). There are additional requirements for cities with a population greater than 250,000. The chart below refers to reporting “tiers,” and the Treasury has provided an Excel list of all recipients and their reporting tier here (sort by “Oregon” at the top of column B).
Contact LOC Lobbyist Mark Gharst for general ARPA questions at mgharst@orcities.org or 503-991-2192.
Last Updated 12/9/22