Emergency Justification Memo

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20220

TO:

Alex Goodenough, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

FROM:

Ryan Law, Deputy Assistant Secretary
Office of Privacy, Transparency, and Records

SUBJECT:

Justification for Emergency Processing: State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds
(SLFRF) Recovery Plan Performance Report, non-UGLG, and NEU Template

Pursuant to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) procedures established at 5 C.F.R. §
1320.13, the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) requests emergency processing for State and
Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program Recovery Plan Performance Report, the Nonentitlement units of government (NEU) distribution template and the Not units of general local
government (Non-UGLG) information collection request, revising OMB Control Number 15050271.
On March 11, 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law, and established the
Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund and Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, which
together make up the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (“SLFRF”) program.
This program is intended to provide support to State, territorial, local, and Tribal governments in
responding to the economic and public health impacts of COVID-19 and in their efforts to
contain impacts on their communities, residents, and businesses. On June 17, 2020, Treasury
published the Compliance and Reporting Guidance that SLFRF recipients need to comply with
to fulfill their reporting requirements. As noted in the Compliance and Reporting Guidance,
recipients are required to fulfill the first of those reporting requirements by August 31, 2021.
Treasury is currently working on developing the reporting portal recipients will use to transmit
the necessary information. The online portal is expected to go live around August 9, 2021, which
will only provide recipients less than a month to fulfill their reporting obligations.
Due to the need to provide guidance to recipients so they can gather the necessary information
needed to be reported through the Treasury reporting portal once it opens or be posted in their
public website, Treasury requests emergency processing and approval by August 6, 2021 of the
Recovery Plan Performance Report, which will contain detailed project performance data,
including information on efforts to improve equity and engage communities; the NEU
Distribution Template, the Non-UGLG Distribution Template, which provide updates on
distributions to individual NEUs and Non-UGLGs, and the associated User Guide.
Due to the need for recipients to prepare and submit the report and template to Treasury
expeditiously, Treasury requests emergency processing and approval of the recovery
performance plan, by August 6, 2021. Given the inability to seek public comment during such a
short timeframe, Treasury requests a waiver from the requirement to publish notice in the
Federal Register seeking public comment.