How to Answer the “Planned Use of Funds” Question in the CRF Application

Last Updated December 10 at 1:45 PM

Coronavirus Relief Funds (CRF) can be attributed to incurred expenses between March 1 2020 – December 30 2020 related to general operating, staffing, fixed costs, and programming. They can also be used for COVID-19, as well as any COVID-19 related expenses such as technological upgrades, PPP, etc. See list of ineligible expenses below.

Your organization’s year-over-year revenue loss determines how much money you are eligible for; however, you will have to attribute any money you receive to an incurred expense so you can only receive as much money as you have expenses to attribute it to.

If you have received any funding from other Federal or State Coronavirus Relief Programs, you need to make sure the money you may receive from RISCA’s CRF grant programs is being attributed to different incurred expenses than the expenses you have attributed other relief funds to. For instance, if you received PPP and used that to cover staff paychecks for the week of December 1st, you can’t also attribute the RISCA CRF money to staff payroll.

See below the list of ineligible expenditure. The document this comes from is a document directed towards state, local, and tribal governments. For this reason, we don’t read #3 as meaning you can’t attribute this money to payroll – clearly that has not been an issue with any of the other programs like PPP.

If you have any additional questions, please email the program director managing the grant program you are interested in applying to.

Nonexclusive examples of ineligible expenditures

The following is a list of examples of costs that would not be eligible expenditures of payments from the Fund.

  1. Expenses for the State share of Medicaid. 4
  2. Damages covered by insurance.
  3. Payroll or benefits expenses for employees whose work duties are not substantially dedicated to mitigating or responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency.
  4. Expenses that have been or will be reimbursed under any federal program, such as the reimbursement by the federal government pursuant to the CARES Act of contributions by States to State unemployment funds.
  5. Reimbursement to donors for donated items or services.
  6. Workforce bonuses other than hazard pay or overtime.
  7. Severance pay.
  8. Legal settlements