Treasury Revises Guidance for CRF, CARES Act

CRF recipients still must obligate funds by Dec. 31, 2021, but now have until Sept. 30, 2022 to expend them.

For the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF), which was established through the CARES Act of 2020, U.S. Treasury has revised guidance regarding when a cost is considered incurred.

In brief, CRF recipients must obligate funds by Dec. 31, 2021, but now have until September 30, 2022 to expend them.

From the revision notice:

Although Treasury has considered the CRF to be a program designed for short-term needs of recipients to combat the virus and respond to the immediate effects of the pandemic, the public health emergency is still in effect, and state, local, and Tribal governments continue to be on the frontlines of the pandemic response. In addition, disruptions in supply chains have hindered recipients’ ability to obtain and put into use goods and equipment in a timely manner. These issues have been magnified in communities experiencing the Delta surge. Finally, given recent litigation, many recipients have not received their allocated payments from the CRF until the last few months.

In light of the foregoing, Treasury is now revising the guidance to provide that a cost associated with a necessary expenditure incurred due to the public health emergency shall be considered to have been incurred by December 31, 2021, if the recipient has incurred an obligation with respect to such cost by December 31, 2021.

The full note from Treasury can be found here.

All federal guidance updates will be additionally posted on our Treasury Guidance page, here.