The U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) made $150 billion in Coronavirus Relief Funds (CRF) available to states, eligible local governments, Tribal governments, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Territories. These prime recipients are spending the money on necessary expenses due to the impact of the pandemic. Follow the money from the prime recipients to their sub-recipients and see a map that shows where the money has been spent.
NOTE: We display the data as we receive it, and do not change, alter, or add to it.
Here are some important facts:
- The CRF was established in March 2020 as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
- Prime recipients must use CRF funds to cover expenses that:
- Are necessary costs due to the public health emergency, such as meeting payroll expenses for public safety and public health employees responding to the pandemic.
- Occurred between March 1 and December 30, 2020.
- The CARES Act gave the Treasury Inspector General (OIG) the responsibility to monitor CRF funds and request the return of any funds that are not spent according to the law. The IG decided that to carry out its oversight responsibilities, it would require prime recipients to submit reports to the IG detailing how the prime recipient and their sub-recipients are spending the money.
- The IG required the 760 recipients that received more than $150,000 to submit reports on their sub-recipients. The prime recipients combined any payments to sub-recipients of less than or equal to $50,000 into one report and did not supply identifying information about those organizations or individuals.
- Prime recipients distributed payment to their sub-recipients through contracts, grants, loans, transfers, and direct payments. The transfers allow one government to simply transfer funding to another governmental entity (for example, the state of Mississippi to the city of Biloxi).
Some limitations to the data to be aware of are:
- 35 prime recipients with thousands of sub-recipients plan to submit reports when the prime recipients can bulk upload the reports instead of submitting them manually, which they will be able to do in December 2020. We will display the data in January 2021. For now, the money these prime recipients received is displayed but the sub-award amount is displayed at $0 and the number of sub-recipients is listed as 0.
- Our data visualizations display prime recipient data for Tribal governments but the money the Tribes distributed to sub-recipients is not yet publicly available.
For more information about the CRF and prime recipient reporting visit the U.S. Department of the Treasury.