HomeMy WebLinkAbout20233479.tiff oyME"r SF.p DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES
I EMPLOYMENT SERVICES OF WELD COUNTY
y 315 N 11TH Avenue,Building B
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November 20,2023
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment
633 17th Street,Suite 1200
Denver,CO 80202-3660
RE:Weld County SLFRF Final Monitoring Report
Dear Darcy Kennedy and Lee Wheeler-Berliner:
On March 10,2023,Employment Services of Weld County(ESWC)received notice that the State
would be conducting an audit of funds spent by Weld County and its subrecipients for the Coronavirus
Stale and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds(SLFRF)program authorized by the American Rescue Plan Act
(ARPA).ESWC and its local non-profit subrecipients cooperated with the audit and when it was
concluded received notice that ESWC as a recipient had properly documented expenditures and
correctly used funds,but that the three subrecipients did not properly document spending of the funds
according to the audit and,therefore,much of the expenditures had been disallowed.
ESWC took immediate action to work with our subrecipients and attempted to help rectify the issues
found in the audit with the non-profits'expenditures,but the State continued to find other issues with
the spending of the funds and neither the County nor the subrecipients,after acting in good faith,
seemed to be able to satisfy the concerns of the State.This resulted in receiving a letter requesting that
ESWC return an amount of$240,086.40 with regards the disallowed costs of the subrecipients.
This request from the State is troubling on many levels.When this federal money was received by the
State of Colorado,Weld County and other Workforce Areas were asked to distribute it as quickly as
possible.The guidance on spending the money was not formerly in place and the contract used to
distribute it was not immediately amended to reflect these new funds.The guidance was intended to be
very broad in nature.The guidance and messaging delivered was to get the funds out the door to the
non-profits,prioritizing those serving underrepresented populations,to support individuals and recover
from COVID impacts as quickly as possible.ESWC acted from a place of trust and quickly moved the
funds to subrecipients through a Request for Proposal process.When it did receive guidance from the
State,ESWC amended the contracts with the State and subrecipients to reflect new guidance.
Therefore,we do not believe this request to return this large amount of funds is timely or fair. We
understand that the determination about these costs needing to be returned is not from the federal
government who is granting entity,but instead the State Controller's Office.We also understand that
Weld is the only county who has been Sited under this grant.
We do have indemnification clauses in our subrecipient contracts and if the federal government
requires the return of these funds,we will enforce those clauses.However,we do not feel it is
appropriate to do that at this time as it will be a significant hardship on those entities.It also is not
Weld County's responsibility to supply these funds yet,as the pass-through entity.We are more than
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2023-3479
1,/oLI/23
oyM�NrSF,� DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES
cv 5 EMPLOYMENT SERVICES OF WELD COUNTY
W n 315 N 11TH Avenue,Building B
i
o 0,, Greeley,CO 80631
�Fcc,co' I (970)353-3800
FAX(970)346-7981
willing to terminate the subrecipient agreements and willingly returned funds through the notice of
funding reduction.
We intend to continue to work as a partner with the State of Colorado,as we were asked to when these
funds were received,to provide any helpful documentation,however,we do not believe the request to
return$240,086.40 is reasonable and will not provide it at this time.
Sincerely,
Mike Freeman,Chair Bill Johnson,Chair
Weld County Commissioner Weld County Workforce Development Board
Cc: Jack Hansell,CDLE CWDC,Quality Assurance and Compliance Manager
Gwen Carter,CDLE CWDC,Operations Manager
Karina Amaya-Ragland,Employment Services of Weld County,Director
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