Hold on repayments

Once a grant has been obligated, the responsible contracting officer must deobligate that grant. Once a grant or contract is obligated, disbursements which were billed must be paid. Rookie mistake by whomever signed the memo. They will be visited by the GAO shortly. Fun times.

OMB can order a pause on funding that is committed but not obligated. It may be that the actual appropriation for new funding has not yet passed - which will cause funds to not have been obligated and were not planned to be obligated until next month. States know to contact their contract/grant officer for instruction. 

All the publicity around this much ado about nothing.