“Fiscal Recovery Funds payments may be used by recipients to provide premium pay to eligible workers performing essential work during the COVID-19 public health emergency or to provide grants to third-party employers with eligible workers performing essential work. These are workers who have been and continue to be relied on to maintain continuity of operations of essential critical infrastructure sectors, including those who are critical to protecting the health and wellbeing of their communities.”
To be eligible for premium pay, workers must be an essential worker who regularly performed in person work, interacted with others at work (including patients, the public, or coworkers), or physically handled items handled by others in critical infrastructure sectors. A worker performing telework from a residence would not be eligible for premium pay. Eligible workers include workers “needed to maintain continuity of operations of essential critical infrastructure sectors.” In addition, workers cannot be exempt from Fair Labor Standards Act overtime rules to be eligible for premium pay. Critical infrastructure sectors and workers include:
Recipients may add additional sectors that are considered critical to protect the health and well-being of residents. Third-party employers and third-party contractors who employ essential workers are also eligible for premium pay.
Lower income workers must take priority in awarding premium pay.
“Premium pay may be awarded in installments or lump sums (e.g., monthly, quarterly, etc.) and may be awarded to hourly, part-time, or salaried or non-hourly workers. Premium pay must be paid in addition to wages already received and may be paid retrospectively. A recipient may not use SLFRF to merely reimburse itself for premium pay or hazard pay already received by the worker, and premium pay may not be paid to volunteers.”
These projects will require the grantee to report on a quarterly basis the status of the project, including expenditures.
Quotes obtained from the Department of the Treasury's Final Rule