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Urgent Updates
What additional information do you have about the federal
stimulus bill (the American Rescue Plan Act)?
The National League of Cities (NLC) has begun holding regular
calls for city officials and is archiving them on the web with the latest information about the federal
stimulus bill. The page also includes an updated, 12-slide presentation with what we know thus far.
The bottom line is that everyone still has more questions than
answers. NLC sent a detailed letter to treasury with topline questions that
would affect all cities, and an appendix with additional, more-specific
questions from NLC member cities.
NLC’s main priority is asking the United States Treasury
Department to make it very clear in their guidance that states can’t put
additional limits on the funds. (City officials may recall that the Texas
Division of Emergency Management placed additional restrictions on CARES Act
funding for certain cities.)
NLC addressed the following questions on last week’s call:
What do cities need to prepare and send to receive
funds? Your city is entitled to these funds, and NLC will have more
about how they will be disbursed as information becomes available.
When will cities need to report use of funds? What details
will they need to include? Treasury doesn’t have the capacity to
oversee 19,000 cities, so it will likely rely on inspector generals to select
cities for some type of audit to be sure that spending is within eligible
categories (we still aren’t sure about what those encompass, either).
When can we expect more guidance? NLC
expects guidance to come before funding is made available, probably within
the next 60 days.
Further Updates
Correction: Last week’s Update included the following
question, which left out crucial language. The Texas Workforce Commission has
indeed seen an increase in fraudulent unemployment claims, but they aren’t
being made BY city officials and employees. Rather, they are
being made by persons fraudulently ALLEGING TO BE city officials or
employees. We apologize for the error.
Cities are seeing rising numbers of fraudulent unemployment
benefits claims made by persons posing as current employees, recently-retired
employees, and even elected officials. Where do we report a suspected
fraudulent claim?
The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) has become aware of the
fraudulent activity through reports of individuals or businesses receiving
correspondence from TWC when no claim has been filed and the individuals are
employed.
The agency encourages anyone who suspects potential fraudulent
activity involving unemployment benefits to report it through the TWC fraud submission portal. You can also email TWC.fraud@twc.state.tx.us
or leave a message at the TWC Fraud Hotline at 800-252-3642.
Where can I find archived issues of the TML Coronavirus
Updates?
TML Coronavirus Updates are archived by date here and by subject here.
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