The Baltimore Sun identified 12 jurisdictions, located mostly in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore, that failed to account for COVID-19 funds allocated to them by the federal government by a March deadline last year, according to online U.S. Treasury records.
The missed deadline puts them at risk of potentially having to repay the funds, according to a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which said that the U.S. Treasury is seeking to recoup around $139 million from around 1,000 local governments across the country that failed to submit any reports on how they allocated federal COVID-19 funds. The money is part of the $350 billion allocated to state, local, territorial and tribal governments through the American Rescue Plan, signed into law by former U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021.
Representatives for six of the Maryland jurisdictions said the deadlines were missed by mistake, and that the reports eventually were submitted with no attempt by the U.S. Treasury to recoup the funds. The other six jurisdictions didn’t respond to requests for comment, though two of them submitted reports past the deadline, according to records reviewed by The Sun.
The largest jurisdiction in Maryland to miss the March 2024 deadline was Somerset County, which was awarded nearly $5 million. Sharon Muir, the county’s internal auditor, said the report’s submission was delayed because a former county employee missed the deadline, and Muir said she didn’t know why the deadline was missed. Muir said the county submitted its report on July of that year and has not received any inquiries from the U.S. Treasury about the funds.
Six other Maryland jurisdictions, with populations ranging from around 300 to 4,000 people — Clear Spring, Deer Park, Town of Hancock, Pocomoke City, Sudlersville and Woodsboro — didn’t respond to an inquiry from The Sun about their missing March 2024 reports. Deer Park and Hancock submitted their reports after the deadline.
The U.S. Treasury didn’t respond to questions about whether reports from the four remaining jurisdictions had since been submitted and whether there were any attempts to recoup the funds.
Local governments received assistance on submitting their reports from the Maryland Municipal League. The organization’s CEO Theresa Kuhns said she has not been made aware of any attempts by the U.S. Treasury to recoup SLFRF funds from any Maryland jurisdictions.
“[O]ur smaller municipalities who sometimes do not employ full time staff do not have the resources or dedicated support to fill out these forms correctly,” Kuhns said in an email.
‘An exercise in patience’
Maryland’s smallest town, Port Tobacco Village — located south of Washington, D.C., and boasting 18 residents as of the 2020 Census — submitted its report by the deadline, but “one checkbox wasn’t checked,” according to Village President Andrzej Marciniak.
This triggered an error, making it appear the report hadn’t been completed, but the error was later fixed, and the village is now “fully compliant,” he said.
“The whole thing was an exercise in patience,” Marciniak said, describing challenges navigating multiple federal systems as part of the ARPA allocation process. He added that he received some help from the National League of Cities, a nonprofit organization that advises local governments. Marciniak said he was directed by the Treasury to complete the report by March of this year, meaning local jurisdictions were given a year-long extension to submit their reports.
The village received around $15,000 in ARPA funds. Some of it was used to issue checks of around $1,000 to every household, Marciniak said. The rest will be spent on a communications platform so county commissioners can conduct video calls and recordings.
Marciniak said the town didn’t have any projects for which it could expend the funds, and that it was much easier to allocate the funds to individuals than to return them to the Treasury.
Virginia Albers, the town manager, clerk and treasurer for the town of Barclay, on Maryland’s eastern shore, said the town hadn’t spent any of its approximately $60,000 award by the time the 2024 report was due “so there wasn’t anything to report.” She said the “absolute deadline” for reporting the information was April 30 of this year, and that the report was submitted by that deadline.
The GAO referred The Sun to the U.S. Treasury to verify whether this was the “absolute deadline,” but did not receive a response.
Barclay used its award to pave four town-owned streets, Albers said. She added that she paid someone to submit the report because she “wanted it done right.”
‘I don’t think it was her fault’
Some of the towns that missed deadlines were assisted by Jeanette DeLude, a “circuit rider” who assists small local governments with their administrative tasks as part of the Maryland Town Manager Circuit Rider Program.
DeLude said reports for Marydel and Hillsboro were not submitted on time due to difficulties accessing the online submission portal. She said those reports have since been submitted, and the U.S. Treasury did not attempt to recoup the funds.
“All the towns I work with have submitted their reports and are not at risk of losing their funding,” she said in an email. “There were problems with the reporting portal due to signin issues. In many cases someone other than me did the original reports and if you don’t have their login information, which many times we didn’t, there was a delay in getting the reports submitted.”
Delude also submitted a report for Templeville, located near the Delaware border, according to Templeville Mayor Helen Knotts. A prior manager, who recently quit, had apparently been working on the report but “didn’t hit the ‘submit’ button right or something,” Knotts said.
“I don’t think it was her fault,” Knotts said. “It was just an oversight.” Knotts said the report has since been submitted by Delude. The prior manager who failed to submit the report could not be reached for comment.
The approximately $19,000 award to Templeville was used to pay $200 to residents to help with their electric bills and to distribute Food Lion gift cards. A lot of people were out of work at the time, Knotts said.
Additional charges for non-compliance
A recent article on the National League of Cities’ website states that the Treasury is “actively recouping” local COVID funds from non-compliant recipients.
“Federal debt collection is legally mandated and happens quickly,” according to the article. “If a city fails to resolve its balance, it could face more than 30% in additional charges within just 91 days.”
The deadline for obligating all the local ARPA funds — that is, assigning the funds to specific projects — was December of last year. Local governments must spend all the funds by the end of 2026.
Have a news tip? Contact Brooke Conrad at bconrad@baltsun.com, 443-682-2356 or @conrad_brooke on X.
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