Grant Management Manual
Nguyet Mahrenholz
The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts was assigned responsibility for grant management as of Sept. 1, 2011. This responsibility was moved from the Office of the Governor to the Comptroller's Office under the Statewide Procurement Division (SPD).
Texas.gov, the official website of the State of Texas, hosts the eGrants website for agencies to post grant applications and announcements. The eGrants website can be a one-stop solution for any organization or individual seeking information related to grants offered by state agencies and local governments. The Comptroller encourages and promotes the use of eGrants website by state agencies and local governments.
The Electronic State Business Daily (ESBD) should not be used to post solicitations for grant applications. Posting the grant opportunity to the ESBD does not allow the user to easily identify grants and results in an unnecessary search of procurement solicitations.
The Agency of Education (AOE) manages a large number of grant programs comprising 110 funding sources, which support youth and adult learners, as well as educators and Local Education Agencies in Vermont. Of these grant programs, many are small or managed through a manual process. Fourteen of our grant programs, comprising about 60% of our grant disbursements, were managed using Grantium, our legacy grant management system (GMS), implemented in 2008. The Grantium System was sunset April 30, 2018.
The Vermont Agency of Education initiated a project to replace Grantium. Following State Bulletin 3.5, the AOE completed a fair bidding procurement process and contracted with MTW (Making Technology Work) Solutions to implement and support their GMS product.
The project will initially transition only the 14 AOE grant applications previously managed in Grantium to the new system. The GMS replacement team will implement, test, train AOE and field staff, and then deploy the grant applications in two overlapping phases. The project will take approximately ten months and it is estimated the first of two phases will be complete by June 30, 2018.
We began this initiative for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, our Grantium System contract was expiring and we chose not to repeat another year of atttempting to mitigate a number of unresolvable problems, that made it increasingly harder and more expensive to meet deadlines and maintain compliance with rules and regulations.
The new GMS will create a streamlined grant review, revision, and approval process. The new system will also reduce data entry with reusable content from centralized common data, and is scalable with the capacity to accommodate more AOE grant applications in the future.
Part II of NSF's Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) covers the NSF award process, from issuance and administration of an NSF award through closeout. When your award notice's conditions reference a particular section of the guide, that section becomes part of the award.
NSF's Conditions webpages provide the full text of the terms and conditions used to manage NSF grants and cooperative agreements. Topics covered on these pages include awardee responsibilities, federal requirements, pre-award costs, no-cost extensions, significant project changes, travel, allowable costs, project reports, final report requirements and more:
Together, the PAPPG and the award terms and conditions detail NSF's administrative requirements, cost principles and audit requirements for its awards. If these two documents are silent on a specific area covered by 2 CFR 200, the requirements specified in 2 CFR 200 must be followed.
As a part of its oversight and monitoring of its funding portfolio, NSF may choose to undertake one or more of the following reviews to assess your organization's ability to administer your NSF award:
This review will determine whether your organization has established award management policies, procedures and practices sufficient to manage NSF funds compliantly. Read the desk review fact sheet and NSF's desk review basics.
This review will typically happen as a part of an advanced monitoring site visit. NSF will verify your accounting system's ability to manage federal funds in accordance with applicable regulations, as well as award terms and conditions. Read the accounting system review fact sheet.
To provide high-level grant guidance to state agencies and community partners, the Office of Federal Assistance has updated the Nevada Grant Manual (updated May 2023). This publication should be used as a primer to understanding grant funding.
The intent of this manual is to provide guidance related to federal grant processes and to direct readers to reliable, authoritative sources of information. The OFA understands this manual is not all inclusive and expects it to serve as general assistance for administering grants within the State of Nevada.
This manual was revised and published May 2023 and replaces all previous versions of this guide. If a change or correction is needed, contact gra...@ofa.nv.gov. Helpful links and references are provided at the end of the document.
Entitlement, allocation, continuation, and other non-competitive grants are reviewed in a similar manner because the amount of funds for which each eligible applicant may apply is known either at the time the RFP is issued or soon after. Approval is contingent upon applicants meeting program requirements as stated in the authorizing statutes or regulations.
Competitive grant proposals are subject to objective assessment of their relative merits and the grants that are recommended for funding must be presented to the Commissioner and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for approval.
In calculating the indirect cost allowable for a particular grant, note that indirect costs cannot be charged on either capital expenditures or on indirect costs themselves. To arrive at the allowable amount one cannot simply multiply a total entitlement by the indirect rate. Instead, it is recommended that the following formula be used:
Note: If indirect costs are recovered, they shall be returned to the general fund of the city or town in accordance with G.L. Chapter 44, Section 53. In the case of regional schools, indirect costs shall be returned to the regional school general fund.
As a final resource for this section, the Review Checklist, that is used by program staff to perform a technical review of all grants, is provided in Appendix K and may be used as an aid in reviewing grants before submitting them to the Department.
Entitlement, allocation, and continuation grants are signed by the appropriate Department of Elementary and Secondary Education administrator as approved, subject to successful completion of a technical review by Grants Management.
Competitive grants are recommended for approval by the appropriate administrator, subject to technical review by Grants Management, and need to be approved by the Commissioner and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Approved grants are forwarded immediately upon completion of the technical review to Payment Processing, where all the necessary paperwork is done to ensure that grant recipients are sent their funds in a timely manner, according to the required allotment schedule.
Most grants will be submitted for programmatic review and approval during late spring or early summer. Because of state and federal cash management and documentation requirements, an approved grant submitted to Grants Management may take a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks for final approval and payment. This makes it especially important that grants be submitted with all required information completely and accurately filled out, including original signatures.
A standard computer-generated grant Payment Notification form is used to officially inform grant recipients of their awards. (See Appendix E.) This form provides important information about the grant, including project duration, approved amount, amount of the initial payment, project number, and (for federal grants) CFDA number.
If at the conclusion of a programmatic and technical review of entitlement grants or a competitive process to determine which discretionary grants to fund, the decision is made not to fund a particular grant or to withhold funding at any time, the approving authority must notify the grant applicant. If the applicant wishes to request a hearing, the applicant must inform the Commissioner of Education within thirty days of such notification. The request for hearing must include:
The hearing, conducted by a hearing officer designated by the Commissioner, takes place within thirty days and with at least seven calendar days notice to the applicant. No later than ten calendar days after the hearing, the hearing officer issues a written decision confirming or rescinding the Department's determination that funds should be withheld. An applicant for federal funds may appeal the final decision to the U.S. Secretary of Education within twenty calendar days after written notification of the hearing officer.
After a grant has been awarded, either as an entitlement or through a competition, it is the responsibility of grant recipients to ensure that it is implemented in compliance with any applicable programmatic requirements. In the administration of grants, recipients must use fiscal controls and fund accounting procedures that will ensure proper disbursement of, and accounting for, grant funds received under any funding award. (See Appendix O for checklist of standards for financial management systems.) What follows are the standard procedures to be used when requesting funds, making amendments, and final reports on grants.
In accordance with state finance regulations, grant recipients can only expend funds from the date their grant was entered as approved into the Department's Grant Management system. This means that if a district wishes to expend grant funds as of a certain start date, the grant must have completed a programmatic review, and been submitted as approved to Grants Management prior to that start date. Districts may not use local funds to cover initial costs for a grant prior to receiving official approval from the Department, with the intent to reimburse themselves after receiving the award notice. Audit exceptions may be taken for any grant funds used for periods not covered by the award letter, leading to districts needing to pay back the misused grant funds.
4a15465005