New Info Coming From MI Treasury on ARP Dollars for NEUs

Posted on September 1, 2021 by chackbarth

The Michigan Department of Treasury recently provided an update to League staff on their continuing efforts to distribute the $322 million, first-year tranche of American Rescue Plan dollars designated for Michigan municipalities that are designated as Non-Entitlement Units. These dollars were allocated to 1,724 Michigan cities, villages, and townships and are scheduled to be distributed on a per capita basis. To date, MI Treasury has received applications from than 1,660 eligible units, with every Michigan city having requested their funds, following the July 8th opening of Treasury’s application portal. Treasury is anticipating being able to begin distributing funds to completed and approved applicants by the middle of September.

Treasury’s 3rd party vendor has recently begun the process of reviewing the submitted funding request applications and auditing those submissions as a precursor to distributing the funds. As of last week, the vendor had completed the initial review of about 1/3 of the applications. Treasury’s Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund webpage is being updated as the vendor completes their audit of applications to display the status for each application.

During this review process, a high error rate has been encountered, with many errors being relatively superficial in nature (missing or wrong signatories, missing addresses or incomplete fields, DUNS number errors, etc). Communities with errors in their application will be asked to make corrections to their applications and resubmit in order for the funds to be disbursed. To facilitate the necessary error corrections, Treasury’s vendor is expected to begin contacting communities by phone late this week/early next week to make those communities aware of the situation with their application. Following this direct contact, a letter will also be issued, likely next week, with the specific errors identified and the process for any necessary corrections and resubmission.

Treasury staff will also be participating in next week’s (Sept 7th) Live with the League broadcast to provide a more detailed update and answer any questions.

Here is some additional information shared recently by the Michigan Department of Treasury:

Intended Audience: Non-Entitlement Units of local government requesting or declining Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Funds under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Non-entitlement units are defined as primary local governments (e.g., cities, villages, townships) other than federally defined metropolitan cities and counties under ARPA.

The Michigan Department of Treasury is reviewing more than 1,600 applications from local units requesting or declining Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (CLFRF). Over 95% of local units have completed the on-line submission process.

The Department of Treasury review team has begun to examine applications. Once the review has been completed and the application is error-free, the contact person and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) will receive an e-mail from [email protected].

Errors in Submission

If errors were found in the on-line submission, the review team will contact the local unit to discuss the identified errors. Additionally, a detailed e-mail will be sent from [email protected] describing the errors. Please note: to successfully request funding, a local unit will have to log back into the ELITE system portal and correct identified errors. To ensure funding, local units are encouraged to complete this within seven days of receipt of the e-mail or be at risk of not receiving funding.

To assist with understanding common errors, the Michigan Department of Treasury has created a list of common errors and how to fix them.

NEU Status

NEUs can go to the Michigan Department of Treasury’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) webpage to obtain their status update through the on-line summary file. Additionally, once audits are completed, local units will be able to access all their submitted information on the Michigan Department of Treasury’s document search site.

Payment Status

Payments to a NEU will occur after all application requirements have been met and after a Michigan Department of Treasury review. The first payments are anticipated to be issued in the next three weeks based upon the information local units verified in SIGMA. These first payments will be for 50% of the allocation amount. The second 50% payment will be approximately 12 months later. Additionally, a smaller payment will be made after the initial on-line submission period is closed. This payment is the redistribution of funds from NEU’s that were non-responsive.

Questions? Comments?

More information and resources on CLFRF are available at Michigan.gov/ARPA.

Questions regarding the CLFRF can be directed to the Michigan Department of Treasury by e-mail at [email protected].

Chris Hackbarth is the League’s director of state & federal affairs. He can be reached at 517-908-0304 and [email protected].

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