It is reporting time again for all municipalities. By April 30, all municipal grantees from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) State and Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program will have to file a Project & Expenditure report with the U.S. Department of Treasury.

It is ARPA reporting time again for all municipalities. While some cities in Michigan file quarterly and have been through this process several times, more than 1,000 NEUs in Michigan will be filing their second annual Project & Expenditure report. With elections and staff turnover at the end of 2022, filing a Project & Expenditure Report might be a challenge for some municipalities.

Here are some resources to help.

Treasury Resources:

• For help from the U.S. Treasury regarding ARPA reporting questions, contact the help desk at [email protected] or call (844) 529-9527.
• Additional self-help resources for completing a report can be found here.
• Finally, a new, simplified video on how to report for smaller communities produced by the U.S. Department of Treasury can be accessed here. This video came from NLC’s urging of Treasury to make the process simpler for the smallest cities with the least capacity.

National League of Cities (NLC) Resources:

• NLC posted a blog on April 12 letting cities know that the portal for reporting is open, that they have to report by April 30, and provided best practices. Click here to read the blog.
• NLC created a step-by-step walk through in PowerPoint slide format of everything a city needs to know to file a report. The slides can be accessed here.

Best Practice Template For Reaching Out To Treasury’s Help Desk

The Treasury portal is up and active. Below is a best practice template and should be used to reach out to Treasury’s help desk. They will likely be flooded with requests for help from the 27,000 cities, the 3,069 counties and the 50 states that need to file. This template will make it as easy as possible for the help desk staff and avoid back and forth with the help desk seeking additional information.

The top part should be used on all emails. The example below should be used if you need to change the account administrator, which was a major problem the help desk last year.

In each request to [email protected], include the following in your email:

City, town, village, etc of __________, [State Name]

UEI number _______________

Federal Tax Identification Number ___________________

“Hello Treasury, I am the (Mayor, City clerk, etc.) for the City, town, village, etc of _________, [State Name].

(Sample detailed description of problem you need help with):

The email you have for the City’s Account Administrator is mayor@_____________.com. We are unable to access Treasury’s reporting portal using this account. Please reset our Account Administrator as indicated below ASAP so we can make our ARPA filing by 4/30/2023 as required.  The individual below is currently registered in Login.gov and will need to be set as Account Administrator. The former account administrator died, resigned and not longer works for the city, lost the election, etc.

name: ____________________

title: _______________

email: ____________________________

John LaMacchia is the League’s director of state & federal affairs. He can be reached at [email protected] or 517-908-0303.