UHY to Help County Manage COVID-19 Stimulus Fees — for a Fee

UHY will serve as an advisor to Franklin County in Missouri on the distribution and administration of $20.2 million in ARPA funds. The county recently opened funding requests for private businesses and nonprofit agencies and requested an advisor to help mitigate any issues with reporting spending to the U.S. Department of Treasury.

The first step, according to managing director and ARPA service leader Jack Reagan, is to work with the local government to develop a scoring rubric that helps determine which projects most deserve funding. "The three sides of the triangle that we see, typically, being funded are government projects, business projects and not-for-profit projects," he told commissioners.

Part of UHY's role could be to design programs that help provide business support, Reagan said. This would include facade improvements, like HVAC improvements and outdoor dining opportunities. The most important part, for Reagan, is monitoring the spending of businesses that receive the grants.

"You’re going to want to have someone setting some eyes on how the money is being spent and making sure that the folks that said they spent it on something actually did spend it on that," he said. "It’s not just the federal reporting risk, there’s the risk out there for misspending, which then gets publicized, and the public loses confidence in the way that the money is being spent."

To minimize that risk, UHY will hold webinars with applicant businesses and nonprofits to clarify any reporting rules up front, Reagan said. "For those that just want free money and they see that there are some quarterly reporting requirements and monitoring things that will be imposed on them, they say, 'Maybe I don’t want the money that much,'" he said. "So then you get people who really want the money and are going to do what they’re legally required to do to obtain that money."

Read the full article published by emissourian.com.