With the uncertainty surrounding the FY24 appropriations process, the USDA Government Purchase Card Program is preparing for the risk of a possible lapse in appropriations. For USDA to be prepared for this possibility, the government purchase card community is asked to:

• Cardholders: Complete reconciliation of your FY23 transactions in US Bank Access Online, including uploading all required documentation, reallocation, and entering comments and routing to your approving official for final approval. This should be completed before the end of the maximum of 4 hours of orderly shutdown process concludes.
• Approving officials: Review transactions that have been sent to you in your manager’s approvals queue and final approve transactions that are reallocated to the correct funding, includes mandatory comments and have all documentation uploaded. Transactions missing any of the required items shall be rejected immediately to the cardholder for corrections. Again, this should be completed before the end of the maximum of 4 hours of orderly shutdown process concludes.
• Initially, cardholder’s limits will not be reduced to allow for USDA to complete mission essential tasks. USDA will be monitoring the LiA and may revisit this at a later date.
• During a LiA, the GPC can ONLY be used by those who are appropriately authorized to work during the shutdown and can only use applicable appropriation authority (e.g., multiyear/no-year money that has not expired, trust funds, etc.). The Anti-Deficiency Act prohibits most agencies from incurring obligations in the absence of annual appropriations (unless otherwise allowed by law or for emergencies involving the safety of life or limb, the protection of property or other excepted services).
• US Bank is continuing normal operations and will continue to monitor cardholders accounts for fraudulent and/or suspicious activity and will suspend accounts if any fraud is detected.

GSA has updated the FAQs for the SmartPay3 Program and those can be found at Frequently Asked Questions for the Federal Government Shutdown | Smartpay (gsa.gov). As additional information becomes available and is approved for dissemination, we will share it as soon as possible. For any specific GPC questions, please contact your LAPC. In the case of an emergency and you cannot contact your LAPC or APC, then you may email ccsc@usda.gov.