News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Tennessee Comptroller’s Office will hold a Tuesday meeting to provide guidance for spending federal money.
State Senator Mark Pody said this is also an opportunity for non-profit organizations and businesses to find out what money is available. Pody said this education is critical, with a lack of guidelines.
“To make sure that the money is going to be allocated, that they’re going to spend it properly,” Pody said. “So we don’t misspend the money and then have to come back and for whatever reason have to pay it back to the federal government. That would leave the Tennessee tax payers picking up some of these bills just because they weren’t aware of it.”
Pody said this is the first of these meetings, which will be held at the Wilson County Expo Center at 1:00 PM and is open to the public. Pody said this is a chance for elected leaders to ask questions on how they can spend instead of just reading guidelines on paper.
“I appreciate the comptroller reaching out to us ahead of time,” Pody said. “So he’s not coming back after he’s had to do the audits and explain why somebody didn’t meet the criteria. So he’s trying ahead of time to be fore-thinking and give us the opportunity to ask the questions and he can give the guidance of what he’s going to be looking for in these audits.”
Pody said there will be a chance to ask money about the roughly $100 million coming down from the state. However, he said that has fewer strings attached so the focus will be on the federal money.
