KINGSTON – An audit of Ulster County’s CARES 2 grant program funded by American Rescue Plan Act money divvied up grants for businesses that were ineligible.
The Audit found that overall, the legislative goals of the program were not met. Only half of the businesses awarded grants qualified as low to moderate income businesses.
At least one awardee had adjusted gross income of over $1 million. The audit also notes that adjusted gross income (AGI) alone is not an effective tool to determine need as it ignores wealth.
The report said future grant programs intended to address need should consider other metrics in addition to AGI.
The Audit found that the contract between Ulster County and the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance was unclear because it called for screening applicants based on “annual gross income” which is not a defined term in New York State or federal tax returns.
Inaccurate information was communicated to the public and applicants with respect to eligibility for the program being limited to businesses that qualified as low to moderate income businesses, the report said. Ineligible businesses were provided to the scoring committee for review.
There were errors in the aggregation of the data to determine the overall scores for all applicants.
“I am disappointed to report that the implementation of the CARES 2 grant program did not meet the intent of the program to only benefit low to moderate income business owners who require additional support to weather the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Comptroller March Gallagher. “It is absolutely critical that county government institute internal controls to assure the integrity of the review and grading process on programs such as this.”
The comptroller said those types of errors “damage the public’s confidence in the allocation of funds.”
She said she appreciates that the Metzger Administration is implementing change at the economic development organization to prevent these types of…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply