US wants back millions in COVID relief from local governments over missing reports

By DAVID A LIEB Associated Press JEFFERSON CITY Mo AP The U S Treasury is seeking to recoup COVID- pandemic relief funds from hundreds of local governments that received millions of dollars but never complied with requirements to analysis how they used the money The federal establishment distributed billion to state local territorial and tribal governments as part of the American Rescue Plan approved by Congress and President Joe Biden in More than governments from the largest state to the tiniest town were to get a share Governments had until the end of to obligate the money for specific projects and were supposed to file either quarterly or annual progress reports depending on their population and how much money they received Largest part complied But as of January about mostly smaller governments had failed to file any reports with the Treasury detailing how they used a total of million according to an analysis by the U S Leadership Accountability Office Related Articles Strategic Sydney Sweeney knew genes ad would be polarizing experts Bessent says child savings accounts in Trump law are a back door for privatizing Social Guard Federal Reserve leaves interest rates unchanged even as Trump demands cuts Trump administration is launching a new private physical condition tracking system with Big Tech s help Medicaid was signed into law years ago Trump s big bill is chiseling it back A GAO statement issued last week commented the Treasury sent notices to the local governments seeking to recoup the money As of June a total of local governments subsequently filed reports and will no longer be subject to repaying their funds the Treasury reported in a letter attached to the GAO record Thirteen governments returned their funds to the Treasury But that still left local governments that had never filed a record nor returned their pandemic relief funds The GAO narrated The Associated Press it does not have list of the specific governments that haven t complied with the reporting requirements The Treasury has not responded to an AP request for a list of the governments that returned their funds and those that still haven t stated how they used it This is not the first time concerns have been raised about governments failing to disclose how they used their pandemic relief funds The GAO released in October that the Treasury had sent noncompliance notices to more than local governments that hadn t filed progress reports on their pandemic relief funds The Treasury at that time declined to provide the noncompliance letters to the AP So the AP in January submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking copies of the noncompliance notices and related correspondence The Treasury still has not fulfilled that request In its the majority up-to-date statement the GAO reported the failure of local governments to file regular progress reports is limiting the Treasury s ability to determine whether they are spending the funds on allowable uses