FY24 Byrne Discretionary Community Project Grants/Byrne Discretionary Grants Program

Transcript also available as PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, FY 2024 Byrne Discretionary Community Project Funding/Byrne Discretionary Grant Program Solicitation Webinar, hosted by BJA. First on this slide, you're going to see some general information on today's webinar. And what I'll do is I'll put it in the chat, the links here for the overview of the Discretionary Grant Program, along with the FAQ document that are both listed on BJA's website for your reference. So you'll see that in the chat; you can click on that on your leisure and view those records. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Erich Dietrich, Associate Deputy Director with BJA to begin the presentation. Erich?

ERICH DIETRICH: Thank you, Daryl. And welcome, everyone. I'm Erich Dietrich, Associate Deputy Director in the BJA Programs Office, and I'll lead off the presentation and then turn it over to my colleagues, Jennifer Garza and Erin Feeley. I'd also like to introduce a few other folks who are on the webinar today but won't be presenting.

First, for BJA, we have Bojana Andrejevic. Bojana has been coordinating our outreach efforts, so she has been communicating with most of the BJA recipients in email to confirm your points of contact. And we also have Associate Deputy Director, Jon Faley, with BJA.

Representing the Office for Victims of Crime, OVC, we have Anne Hamilton. And representing the National Institute for Justice, we have Scott Privette. And with OJJDP, we have Leanetta Jessie.

After providing a brief overview of the Office of Justice Programs, I'll introduce the general program requirements and application deadlines, and then Jennifer will cover the Eligibility and Application Requirements section. After Jennifer, Erin will deliver the Post-Award Considerations section, and we'll finish with additional application resources.

Before we get started though, we're going to launch a poll to get a sense of your experience with grants. Daryl is going to launch the poll on the side. If you can go ahead and respond to that and then we'll move on.

Looks like a healthy mixture of experienced and not experienced, which is, from past years, that's pretty standard for this program. One of the interesting things about this program, we have a lot of new recipients. So it's a good thing you're here.

Okay. I think the poll is closed. So, Daryl, if you want to move on to the next slide. We'll move into our first section of the webinar to introduce you to OJP.

The Office of Justice Programs provides grant funding, training, research, and statistics to the criminal justice community. OJP is one of three grant-making components of the Department of Justice, along with OVW, the Office for Violence Against Women, and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services or COPS. And under the Office of Justice Programs, we have various program offices, including BJA, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking, which is the SMART Office. OJP is led by the Assistant Attorney General, Amy Solomon.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance was created in 1984 to reduce violent crime, create safe communities, and reform our nation's criminal justice system. BJA strengthens the nation's criminal justice system and helps America's state, local, tribal, and tribal jurisdictions reduce and prevent crime, reduce recidivism, and promote a fair and safe criminal justice system.

BJA focuses its programmatic and policy efforts on providing a wide range of resources—including training and technical assistance—to law enforcement, courts, corrections, treatment, reentry, justice information sharing, and community-based partners to address chronic and emerging criminal justice challenges nationwide. BJA is led by Director Karhlton Moore.

BJA supports the field in three primary ways. First of all, we invest with our grants, but we also engage and share knowledge to ensure those investments pay dividends to the communities we serve.

Now, we'll transition to the program-specific information for the Byrne Discretionary Grant Program. The Byrne Discretionary Grant Program supports projects appropriated for funding in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. You may be familiar with the term “earmark,” but the House term—the House of Representatives term now used is the “community project funding” and the Senate term is “congressionally directed spending” for these projects.

This is a unique grant program in the fact that the authorizing language is very brief. The bolded language on this slide is critical and it is repeated in the solicitation and in today during the webinar. A total of $350 million was appropriated, and funding will only be provided for 475 OJP Byrne projects in the amounts designated in the Joint Explanatory Statement or JES, which is incorporated by reference into the public law. This language is the key factor in allowability of cost, which we will detail in the webinar.

As a side note, some of you may be familiar with the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant or JAG Program, which is a formula grant program that BJA administers. Although Congress uses the Byrne name for this program, the other requirements related to JAG do not apply other than one funding restriction, which we will cover later.

One of the most common questions we have gotten from recipients of funding is why there is a requirement to apply again. This slide outlines the process. Congressional sponsors solicited their constituents for community projects in need of funding, and we understand you previously submitted an application directly to them, probably last year.

Once decisions were made on which projects where to fund, they were appropriated as a discretionary grant program in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. Because they were authorized as a grant program, the funding is administered under the requirements for federal assistance, and that is why we need you to submit a grant application so then we can issue the award. This is a non-competitive grant program, only open to recipients of funding for the specific projects.

As I mentioned, there's 475 OJP Byrne projects designated for funding in the 2024 Consolidation Appropriations Act, but four different OJP offices will be administering the grants based on the office topic area and expertise. Therefore, we have four identical solicitations open: one for BJA projects, one for OJJDP projects, one for OVC projects, and one for NIJ projects, which—actually just one project for NIJ. Jennifer will mention this again, but applicants must apply to the Opportunity ID for their specific project. This slide lists the IDs by office, which we will—which were also sent to you in the email invitation that you received.

Another common question we receive is whether the grant funds, once received, must be expended in fiscal year 2024. The answer is no, they don't need to be spent in a specific timeframe. OJP will issue awards with a period of performance beginning the date of the Consolidated Appropriation Acts' enactment—which was March 9th—unless you ask for a later start date, which should be the first day of the month during which the recipient expects to begin obligating funds. Cost incurred on or after March 9th—or the date that you request, if different—but prior to the issuance of an award and approval of the project budget by OJP, may be reimbursed but are incurred at the applicant's own risk as authorized cost will be limited to those approved by OJP. As for the project duration, you can request a 12-month up to a 48-month total project period. You should request a period of performance that is anticipated necessary to meeting the needs of your project goals.

This is the final frequently asked question I'll address before turning it over to Jennifer to cover the application requirements. But this is a good transition question. Understanding it has been possibly a year or more since your agency submitted its community project request to your congressional sponsor, many recipients want to know if they can request different costs in their grant application. The answer is that it depends. It all goes back to the project title in the Appropriations law and whether the activities or costs would be allowable under that project title. If they would be allowable, then it doesn't matter if there are changes from what you proposed to the congressional sponsor.

We have an example on this slide to demonstrate this for a project titled Purchase of Body-Worn Cameras. In this example, the requester may have specified in its application to Congress a specific model of the body-worn camera, a quantity, functionality, or accessories to go with the cameras. Since those specifics are not in the project title, now that the requestor is submitting the grant application, changes like these are perfectly fine in their grant application. What would not be allowable in the grant application would be for things like including in-car cameras, because in-car cameras are not in the project title, only body-worn cameras. Or requesting funds to pay officers to use the body-worn cameras because the project title was limited to procurement of the cameras and not for staffing. There's a wide range of projects-appropriated funding, and the same principle applies although the projects differ in scope and specificity.

And at this point, we will transition to the application requirements in the solicitation,. which BJA Division Chief Jennifer Garza will cover. Jennifer.

JENNIFER GARZA: Thank you, Erich. And good afternoon to our participants who may be joining from the Eastern or Central time zones. Good morning to all our other participants who may be joining us from the Western time zones.

As Erich mentioned, my name is Jennifer Garza and I'm a Division Chief in the BJA Programs Office, and I'll be covering the eligibility and application requirements for the BJA Byrne Discretionary Grant Program.

So, application steps. Applying to the Byrne Discretionary Grant Program is a two-step process. For the first step, you submit the first two required application forms in Grants.gov by 8:59 PM on May 23rd. And those forms are the SF-424 and SF-LLL, which we will talk about in subsequent slides.

For the second step, you must submit the rest of the required application documents in the JustGrants system, which is the DOJ grant management system. The second step must be completed again by 8:59 PM, this time on June 6. To apply in both Grants.gov and JustGrants, your organization needs to have an active registration in the system of award—or, excuse me—System for Award Management, commonly referred to as SAM.gov, and I'll also talk to that momentarily.

As you can see, the process to receive your funding has multiple steps, so it's important to start well before the deadlines on this slide in order to receive your funding in a timely manner.

So here we have a visual roadmap of the grant application steps. Again, first, you register your organization in SAM.gov or, if already registered, you check and renew your registration, if needed. Once your SAM.gov registration is active, you access Grants.gov and search for the Opportunity ID number associated with your funding. As Erich noted earlier, it is critical you apply to the correct Byrne Discretionary Grant Program, so be sure to search by the Opportunity number associated with your funded project.

Once you submit the SF-424 and the SF-LLL in Grants.gov, then you move into the JustGrants system and complete the bulk of the application, which is down here at the end. And I'll be addressing more of that too in-depth later. I also want to note that the person that is identified as the SAM.gov E-Biz point of contact will automatically become the JustGrants' entity administrator, which is a role—a grantee role, excuse me—in the JustGrants system. And the person that's listed in Grants.gov as the application submitter will automatically become the application submitter in JustGrants. Now, if either of these people are not intending to fulfill those roles in JustGrants, that can be reassigned once logged in to JustGrants.

All right. So the System for Award Administration, otherwise known as SAM.gov. Your organization, again, must have an active SAM registration in order to apply and receive funding. This is a requirement across the federal government for any federal financial assistance. If your organization already has an active SAM.gov registration, great, no further action is needed, you can move in to the Grants.gov application step. However, if your organization does not have an active SAM.gov registration or if your SAM.gov registration will expire in the near future, you must first take action to register or renew in the system.

It can take anywhere from 10 to 15 business days to complete the registration, and if there are any issues or questions with the registration, it can potentially take longer. So it's important that you check your registration or start the registration process well in advance of starting the Grants.gov application step. SAM.gov has a number of tutorials and other resources about registering or renewing your organization in the system, so I highly encourage you to review some of those job aids first if this will be your first time registering in the system.

All right. Step one, Grants.gov. So you're registered in SAM, now what? Now is when you initiate the grant application in Grants.gov. In Grants.gov, you'll submit what is known as the SF-424 and the SF-LLL. Again, make sure you are applying to the correct Byrne Discretionary Grant Program associated with your project. The best way to do that is by searching for that Opportunity ID number, which for this program, was sent to you in the email invitation to this webinar.

Once you're in the system and you complete the SF-424 and the SF-LLL and submit them, the application—excuse me, the information will pass seamlessly into JustGrants where you'll finish the rest of your application. If you happen to be a recipient with more than one funded Byrne Discretionary Project, you still must submit an application for each project, and that's because OJP is required to issue a separate grant award for each funded project. Please note, it can take up to three days for Grants.gov to verify your application and pass it into the JustGrants system. So it is important to apply in JustGrant—excuse me. Grants.gov—no later than the May 23rd deadline. But I still recommend you do well so in advance of that deadline.

Lastly, should you encounter any issues with Grants.gov, please note that that system is managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, not DOJ. So if you have access or technical issues with the system, please reach out to the Grants.gov helpdesk. That contact information is there on the bottom of the slide. BJA will not be able to assist you if you have technical issues with the Grants.gov site.

Daryl, if you can give it just a couple, few seconds so that participants can write down that number if needed, and then we can move on to the next slide. Thank you.

DARYL FOX: And Jennifer, also, I've put that number and the link and the chat, so if they want a link to that, they can.

JENNIFER GARZA: Oh, perfect. Thank you.

DARYL FOX: Uh-hmm.

JENNIFER GARZA: Great. Great. Next slide then.

All right. So the SF-424. This is one of the two forms you will submit with your application in Grants.gov. The applicant information starts with section 8. We've included a few notes here about a few different text boxes in the SF-424 that we would like to point out. For the first box there, Box 8f, it asks for the name and contact information of the person that will be completing the form. Be sure to put in the name of the person who will be completing the application in JustGrants. That's because the name you put in this section will be assigned that application submitter role in JustGrants and will be the person responsible for submitting the application in the JustGrants system.

For Box 15, please input the project title for your funded project exactly as it appears in the Joint Explanatory Statement. If you are unsure at all what your project title is, there was a link in the email that was sent to you for this webinar that will take you to a list of all the projects designated to OJP for funding in FY24 and you can find the title there. We may be also able to drop the link to those projects in the chat, if we haven't already.

Similarly, the dollar amount listed in Box 18a, that must match the funded amount of your project as well, as it appears in the Joint Explanatory Statement. Again, if you're unsure at all what the funded amount of your project is, you can identify it in that link that was provided in the email inviting you to this webinar.

Lastly, for Box 19, if your application is subject to intergovernmental review by your state under Executive Order 12372, that does apply to the Byrne Discretionary Grant Program. We are adding a list in the chat that indicates which states participate in that executive order, along with the link to your state single point of contact. If your state is listed and you need to—you will need to send the requested information to your state single point of contact and enter the date you did so in Box 19 of the SF-424. You do not need to wait to get a response from the state single point of contact before submitting your application in Grants.gov, you just need to input the date that you sent it to your state single point of contact.

Finally, you can see some instructions for the SF-424 linked there on the bottom of the slide should you need more information. You can also find some instructions on Grants.gov.

The SF-LLL, this is the second form that you're going to be submitting in Grants.gov. It's pretty self-explanatory and it's just essentially asking if your organization used its own funds to pay for a lobbyist to influence Congress or the federal government on your organization's behalf for your funded project. You only need to enter in information in the highlighted fields of the form as shown here on the slide.
Please note, if you did not pay a lobbyist to influence Congress or the federal government on your behalf for your funded project, you are to enter “not applicable” or “NA” in the text fields for boxes 10a and 10b. If you did pay a lobbyist to influence Congress or the federal government for your organization for your funded project, then you would select “Yes” and enter in the requested information in boxes 10a and 10b.

Please do not enter in your name in those boxes. This is a common mistake we see. You are to only input names and organizations there if you paid a lobbyist to lobby on your behalf for this particular funded project. If you hired a lobbyist for any other purpose other than the project you were funded for under the Byrne Discretionary Grant Program, you also do not need to include that here at this time.
All right. JustGrants. So, you've completed the SF-424, you've completed the SF-LLL, you've hit “Submit” in Grants.gov, now what? Once that Grants.gov application has migrated into JustGrants, this is where you complete the remainder of your application in the JustGrants system. There are several additional documents that need to be completed, to include an abstract, a project narrative that includes goals and a timeline, a budget, the Financial Management Questionnaire, and a couple other documents as applicable, and some disclosures and assurances. We will address each one of these in more depth in the following slides. You also, at this time, would want to review all the information that migrated from Grants.gov into JustGrants to make sure that it's correct.

And as a reminder, the JustGrants system is the DOJ grant management system. Should you encounter any access or technical issues with the system, you can contact the JustGrants helpdesk at the number there on the slide or you can email at JustGrants, which is one word, [email protected].

All right. So the first required application document in the JustGrants system is the abstract. The abstract is a brief synopsis. It's no more than 400 words of your funded project. You can either type it up in a Microsoft Word document and cut and paste it directly into the text field in JustGrants application for the abstract section or you can just type it in directly into the text box. The most important thing to remember about the abstract is that anything you put in there is going to be released publicly on the BJA website and on USAspending.gov, so you do not want to enter any personal identifiable information in the abstract. So, no names, no emails, no phone numbers, no addresses, nothing identifiable, because it will be released publicly. So, just keep the abstract brief and to the point.

All right. The Proposal Narrative. This you will prepare outside the JustGrants system and include it as an attachment with your application. It can either be a Word document or a PDF; it doesn't matter. The Proposal Narrative should address those four sections you see listed on the slide. I'd say the most important thing though to remember about the Proposal Narrative is that even if you're not competing for award funding, BJA needs to understand what activities you're proposing to fund, how you plan to implement them, what the goals and objectives of your project are, and how you will be collecting performance data.

And this is so we can better understand what you're funding and also ensure it is consistent with the project that was listed in the Joint Explanatory Statement and reasonably aligns to that project title. So we need to have enough project information in the narrative in order to make this assessment. Otherwise, it could result in a withholding on your award funds until we have more project details. We do request the Proposal Narrative follow that basic format, addressing those four sections, but there are no font or project limit requirements.

All right. Now, we're moving into the budget. All costs under grants across the federal government must be reasonable, allocable, and necessary. Costs must also be allowable under program guidance 2 CFR 200 and the DOJ Financial Guide. Funds cannot be used to supplant or replace state or local funding that was designated for the same purpose. To illustrate this, if you are awarded funding for, say, a school resource officer, and you've already allocated local funds toward that position, you cannot then replace those funds with your federal award and use the local funds for something else. You could, however, use the federal funds to hire an additional school resource officer.

So funds cannot go to provide security enhancements to non-governmental organizations not engaged in public safety or criminal justice and certain items such as incentives with a monetary value, like—I think the example there is entertainment tickets like movie tickets—participant stipends, and food and beverage costs are all expressly prohibited. Again, only costs for your projects that are reasonably funded under the scope of the project title will be allowed.

All right. Budget and prohibited expenditures. So some of our law enforcement participants in today's webinar may be particularly familiar with these next two slides. During the Obama administration, a number of law enforcement-centric equipment items were prohibited from purchase under all federal assistance awards and other items were controlled or required prior approval. Those prior approval requirements and prohibited items kind of went away during the Trump administration, and now under the Biden administration those items are back to being prohibited and controlled.

On this slide, you'll see a list of a number of items that are now prohibited for purchase under OJP's grant awards. If you have a project where you are going to be using your funding to purchase law enforcement equipment or supplies listed here on this slide, pay close attention to the prohibitions and restrictions. Items marked with an asterisk on this slide do have some additional qualifying language, that just wouldn't fit on the slide. So if you need, you can link to the full guidance at the web address listed.

I would also like to note that unmanned aerial vehicles or unmanned aerial systems— commonly referred to in plain language as drones—those along with all their accessories are prohibited under OJP policy for purchase with our grant funding. And this is one we get frequent inquiries about. That prohibition extends to the use of grant funds to pay for a third-party vendor to provide those services. So, again, I just want to point that out because we do see frequent questions about it, and so, again, please be mindful when it comes to using grant funds for anything associated with a drone.

Next slide, please. Here we have a list of, again, law enforcement-centric equipment that is controlled per the current executive order and require prior approval. We don't see too many of these items requested for purchase normally, but if you are approved for an item on this slide, such as, say, like an incident command vehicle or a helicopter, you do still need to submit a waiver request to BJA prior to purchase. And that waiver request must address several different conditions related to the purchase per the executive order policy. Like the prior slide, there's a link there if you need more details. And if you happen to be funding an item that appears on the controlled expenditure list, it may result in a funding hold on your award until you submit that waiver request and it's approved. So I just want to put that out there, in case—just so it's not a surprise.

All right. Budget. You are required to input a detailed budget for your project you're designated funding into the JustGrants system. This budget is submitted as a web-based form within the system. The budget has several different categories of costs. If you click on the little triangle to the left of each category, it will expand and you will see a little table where you input your proposed costs, as well as a text box below it where you include a narrative, providing further details about each cost.

All costs should be supported and clear. It is recommended to break down costs into, say, a unit or hourly cost and quantity were possible so that BJA can reasonably assess your costs. At this stage, it is fine to estimate your proposed costs. We do understand that actual costs may differ once you start implementing your projects and that's completely okay. The important thing I want to point out is to make sure that you have a justification and some sort of criteria for showing how you came up with the cost for your planned project.

You should also not include any non-federal costs you plan to contribute to your project and your award budget. This is considered a match and it is not required under this grant program. Additionally, if you do include a non-mandatory, non-federal match in your budget, you will be required by OJP to contribute that amount to the project. So, should your funding circumstances change down the road and you can no longer contribute that match, that could put you in a pickle when you didn't need to be.

So just include the costs that you plan to contribute to the project with your grant award funding and, most importantly, make sure your budget totals exactly to the amount you were awarded as identified in that Joint Explanatory Statement. If your budget does not total up exactly to what is in the Joint Explanatory Statement, we cannot clear your budget and it will result in a withholding on your award funds until we have an updated budget, even if you're off by a dollar. So super important to ensure your budget mirrors what is in the budget—what you're funded for in the Joint Explanatory Statement. All right. Budget clearance. So, like we said, after completing your application and we’ve received it, we review your application to include your proposed budget. We ideally like to do this when we receive the application, so that when you receive your award, there are no withholding conditions on the award associated with your budget and you have full access to your funds. If, however, upon review of the budget, we cannot reasonably assess proposed costs because the costs were not supported or clear, then it may result in an award condition withholding that prevents you from accessing your award funds until we receive an updated budget that provides more clarity and we can clear it.

The slide here offers some good example, or at least a good example of how a recipient calculated the fringe benefit costs associated with the position supported under their grant award and doing so by breaking down the different components that added up to the fringe rate. So you want to do stuff like this when you're preparing your budget.

You also want to ensure you're putting costs into the correct cost category. So, say, subawards; all subrecipient costs should be captured in the subaward budget. If you have a subrecipient that's going to be purchasing equipment, you don't want to put that equipment in the equipment cost category. All subrecipient costs should be captured in the subaward cost category.

Same with supplies. Supplies—that can include small equipment costs under $5,000. That should all be in the Supplies cost category.

The Other cost category—which is kind of toward the end of the budget—that can capture costs that don't clearly align to other cost categories. And most importantly here, just in general, review your budget just to make sure it doesn't include any unallowable items or items that do not clearly align to your project title. Following these general guidelines will certainly help you get your budget into a Cleared status at the time of award.

All right. The Financial Management Controls Questionnaire. This, unlike the budget, is another item that needs to be completed in JustGrants and is a web-based form. It asks several questions about your organization's financial internal controls and recent audit findings, And it really should be completed by someone who is very familiar with your agency's financial management practices such as a finance director, a chief financial officer, or someone in a similar position.

Like I said, the questionnaire is web-based. However, I do want to note that, currently for the BJA Byrne Discretionary Grant Program, the form has been suppressed in the JustGrants system and is not currently available. We are working to enable it and it should be available by the end of today. For those who may have an application in flight in JustGrants, please just wait until the questionnaire is available so you can complete it before submitting your application in the system.

You may be wondering why we even need this Financial Management Controls Questionnaire, and that's because all federal awarding agencies across the government are required under 2 CFR 200.206 and the Payments Integrity Information Act of 2019 to access applicant risk. So this questionnaire, along with a few other items, is used by OJP to evaluate your risk prior to award. Applicants that are deemed high-risk may have additional award conditions placed on their awards. If you don't complete the form, we cannot assess your risk prior to award and it will result in a withholding condition on your access to your award funds until it's submitted. So it's just important to ensure you complete the Financial Management Controls Questionnaire thoroughly before submitting your application in JustGrants.

All right. Indirect Cost Rate Agreement. This slide includes some details on the requirements for those who may be interested in including indirect costs in their grant award budget. Basically, grant recipients have two options for charging indirect costs to their awards. For those with a current, unexpired federally approved Indirect Cost Rate Agreement with your cognizant federal agency, the agreement should be included as an attachment in your application in JustGrants.

For those organizations without a negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement, and that are receiving less than $35 million in direct federal assistance for the year, you may elect to use what is known as the de minimis indirect rate. Currently, that rate is 10%, but for fiscal year '24, the rate will be increasing to 15% of Modified Total Direct Costs. That 15% rate will go into effect no later than October 1st, 2024, but it may be applied earlier. OJP is still determining when the rate increase will be effective and we will communicate an effective date once the decision is made.

If you're using that de minimis rate, grantees must include a narrative statement in the Indirect Cost Rate category of the JustGrants budget, stating you're eligible and electing to use the rate. No separate attachment is required. The DOJ Financial Guide has a very good section on indirect cost rates and the rules and the policies for them, for different types of entities, as well as how to calculate Modified Total Direct Costs. So I encourage everyone to, if you're unsure of any of this at all and you're interested in taking indirect costs, go review the rules in the DOJ Financial Guide and figure out what applies and when. There's also a link there on the slide with more information about indirect costs, if you're interested.

This is another attachment that may be applicable to your project depending on what you're proposing to fund. If your project is involving any sort of research or evaluation, then you will need to create an attachment that is responsive to concerns regarding conflicts of interests associated with the project. The DOJ Application Guide, which is linked there on the slide, goes much more in-depth about what is needed to be addressed in that statement.

So, if you’d all have a project that may involve research and evaluation, I encourage you to review that section in the guide so you are aware what you need to address in your statement. Projects that appear to be involving research or evaluation may have a withholding placed on the award if this statement is missing from the application.

Finally, we've reached the last item that needs to be submitted with your grant application in JustGrants. The first one listed here, the application Disclosure of Duplication in Cost Items, that's basically a yes-or-no question. If you do not have any pending federal applications for the exact same cost or project as included in your fiscal year '24 BJA Byrne Discretionary Grant application, you answer “No” for this disclosure in JustGrants.

After completing the Duplication in Cost disclosure, the application submitter will also review and accept the DOJ Standard Assurances, as well as some certifications regarding lobbying, disbarments and suspension, drug-free workplace, and more.

All right. So, in summary, not only is applying for your award a two-step process, there are multiple subcomponents to each step. After registering, renewing, and/or verifying your SAM.gov registration, you first need to submit that SF-424 and SF-LLL in Grants.gov. After all the information is transferred from Grants.gov into JustGrants and validated, you can then submit the remainder of your application in JustGrants.

You cannot bypass Grants.gov and go directly into JustGrants. You must submit the first part of your application in Grants.gov before you can submit that second portion in JustGrants. My recommendation is please do not procrastinate and try to do this at the last minute. It happens more often than you think. The application process is multi-stepped and you really do need to do some adequate planning to make sure you meet those deadlines. So please start early, in case you encounter any hiccups along the way.

With that said, that concludes the Eligibility and Application Requirements section. It is where I'm handing it off to Erin Feeley, a Grant Manager in the BJA Programs Office who'll be walking you through the Post-Award Considerations.

ERIN FEELEY: Thanks, Jennifer.

Would we like to take a moment to address some of the earlier questions around the deadline before I move forward? I think we can, kind of, maybe get back to some of those questions a little later on then.

All right. So, in this next section, we will provide an overview of what happens after your award is in process. There's often a lot of questions about what do I do once we get past the application. So much of what Jennifer just spoke about, you'll kind of see as things flow into that, kind of, Post-Award Considerations. Many things related to what she spoke about in terms of the budget, budget clearance, prohibited and controlled equipment, you'll definitely be hearing and seeing a lot more about that.

So, let's get started with this next section. One of our big questions often is, "Well, how do I access my funds?" Okay. After the award has been processed, as you can see here on this particular slide, you will have to complete, potentially, some what we call award conditions. And eventually you will be able to draw down payment in what is called the Automated Standard Application for Payment, or you'll hear the acronym ASAP come up quite a bit.

So, just as also as a reminder from before, this program does not have the same rules as JAG and unlike JAG, funds cannot be drawn down fully in advance. There are no restrictions on the frequency of drawdown requests when doing so on a reimbursement basis.

So in the next few slides, we're going to cover what you'll often see as award conditions. One note, once the award has been processed in JustGrants, you will be able to print out these award conditions for yourself and be able to read through them. And to see a summary, I suggest that you kind of go in and be able to do that. Anything that is holding up an award for payments, you will see under what's going to be called the Funding Balance and Availability tab. That is really going to be a good place for you to check things out once your award has been processed.

The JustGrants website does have some checklists and trainings for all of these actions and things that I've mentioned. But the important part for right now is the award agreement is a legally binding agreement between your organization as a recipient and the federal government, with standard award conditions that must be followed. These conditions, again, may place a hold on your initial drawdown of the funds but your grant manager, like me, will be here to help you through that process.

Now, depending on your project, there may be some very specific award conditions that you will be assigned. Projects with potential environmental impact such as constructions, renovation, use of chemicals—and that will include DNA equipment, DNA testing. One note is that funds cannot be obligated or expended on those activities until OJP completes a National Environmental Protection Act assessment. Again, you’re going to appear that acronym come up quite a lot, which is NEPA. Again, your grant manager, such as myself, will be here to kind of help you through that process.

There are also going to be specific award conditions and requirements related to projects that include Rapid DNA. And again, that will prohibit access to funds until a particular certifications receipt. And again, BJA, my team, we will provide some guidance on Rapid DNA projects and this process. Other specific requirements will be outlined in those award conditions and we do definitely encourage you to review those once your award is processed.

All right. So another big question that comes up often is, "Well, what do I need to report?" All the recipients of BJA funding are required to collect and report both performance and financial data. The performance reports are there to assist BJA with fulfilling its responsibility under a variety of different acts such as the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010, all the way up to the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency Act of 2019.

So BJA currently collects performance-measured date in the JustGrants system and that will be reported semi-annually. That means January and July. Federal Financial Reports, or FFRs, will be reported on a quarterly basis and that is based on the federal fiscal year in terms of the quarters.

So these reports—both the performance report and the federal financial report—must be submitted by the 30th of each reporting month. Yes, we know there are 31 days in July and January, but the due date will always be the 30th of the month. So again, that Funding Balance and Availability tab that I mentioned will list any delinquent reports that will also potentially cause a hold on any drawdowns that you want to be able to do in the ASAP system. So you will be able to refer to the JustGrants training page—we can go on to the next slide—that will be able to give you more information on both of these reporting processes.

So the other item that many grantees need to address, as you've been already asking here with some great questions, is procurement. So after the award is processed, kind of the procurement side of things may need to have some additional award conditions. It may also require you to go through an additional budget clearance process.

If you have any questions, I know there's been a lot of questions about prohibited and controlled equipment, the link to that list was posted in the chat. I would also recommend the DOJ Financial Guide, that is always a wonderful place to start to look for things in terms of what is allowable and an unallowable cost. The DOJ Financial Guide will also list things in terms of procurement when it comes to threshold. It will give you a little bit more detail around the sole-source questions that I've been seeing.

So just to, kind of, summarize here, again, you'll want to definitely be in contact with your BJA grant manager and be able to, kind of, walk through those award conditions, as well as any questions around the procurement section of your budget.

Again, another question that we've been getting a lot is, "Well, what happens if things change?" Cost will change, maybe there might be a slight direction in the type of equipment that you're looking at. As I mentioned before, maybe some additions to a body-worn camera. So that is where you can address that with your grant manager through what is called a Grant Award Modification. Again, another acronym here is GAM.

Now, the funds are available, you can go into the JustGrants system and you can process different types of GAMs. I would suggest reaching out to your grant manager first to find out first which type of GAM—and we have them listed here on the slide—you should be submitting. And also if the change that you're requesting will actually need a formal modification to the award.

So again, just to remind you, your organization cannot request changes to the project title or any changes not allowed under that project title. But outside of those restrictions, you can request modifications that again are consistent with OJP's policy. All right. We have covered quite a bit of information here, and Daryl is going to go ahead and open up a poll question for you. So now that you've heard more about the program, do you think you're ready to apply? Poll should be open. We'll give it a minute.

All right, Daryl. How are we looking on the answers?

DARYL FOX: It looks a majority, about half already. A couple of not sures and very minimal no, I need more helps. Okay. And close that poll, you can look at the results.

ERIN FEELEY: All right. Okay. Yeah. That is a good summary. A big group of you are definitely ready to apply. And if you're not sure, that's okay. We're here. So let's kind of keep moving on, maybe some of these resources and our contact information will, kind of, help get you over the line there and be ready to apply.

All right. So we spoke a lot about SAM.gov, Grants.gov, JustGrants, multiple systems. As Daryl just posted a link into the chat, I would highly recommend that you go out to that JustGrants page. There were a whole host of brand-new session times that were just posted specifically for application submission. The JustGrants team will go through, kind of, each of those pages and forms and how things connect to each other—really go into the mechanics of that. Those are really, really good sessions. And then post-award, of course, there will be additional live sessions and trainings that will cover things like the Grant Award Modification, submitting your performance report. So there will definitely be plenty of opportunities to continue to engage in the training.

So I'd like to just again provide, as Jennifer did, our important contact centers for both SAM.gov. And again that's going to be the first place you're going to want to register to make sure that your organization, what is going to be commonly referred to now as an “entity,” is validated. You have that all-important UEI number and you can complete that registration and then move on to Grants.gov where you will complete that SF-424 and the lobbying questionnaire.

And once you are done with those two websites, JustGrants has a contact center and we have some, again, links in the chat. This slide deck will be provided eventually once the recording is done posted. We will let you know when everything is available on the website.

All right. So one last page that—or no, actually this is again, just kind of going over that JustGrants does have those additional training sessions. Let's go on to the next web— okay. This is the other page that I would highly recommend that you bookmark. This page has a lot of the information that we were talking about in the webinar today, a lot of the forms, the application attachments. So for example, you've got more questions about that environmental or need for certification, indirect cost rates, a lot of that is listed out here on the Application Resource Guide. Daryl's got the link in the chat there. If you want to click on that and just kind of quickly bookmark it. That's a really good resource.

All right. So we mentioned a whole bunch of pages and things to bookmark. One way that you can make sure that you stay up to date on all these updated trainings, newsletters, new solicitations that are being posted is to be able to subscribe to OJP's newsletter and definitely stay in touch. If you prefer social media, you can stay in touch here. Daryl's got those links in the chat for us, thank you.

All right. So today, we have a lot of great questions that have been posted in the Q&A as well as the chat. We are attempting to answer most of those and I'll turn it over to Daryl and to Erich and we can, kind of, maybe take some of those more verbally.

Again, if you feel like your question was not answered or was not answered thoroughly today, please do reach out to that email address. In some cases, we may need some additional information or clarification of your question, so we will definitely be in contact. So please, please let us know if there's anything here that we haven't quite gotten to or needs some additional information, and we’ll do that.

DARYL FOX: Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks for that, Erin. Thanks for our presenters. That's a lot of information. I just got a couple of different things as our presenters are going to be coordinating the Q&A here in a bit. The caption recording transcript and PowerPoint for today will be posted to the BJA website. So you'll be able to link all the links that were provided within the PowerPoint slides itself, review the recording as you need and as we go through the next few moments with the Q&A. So everybody that registered will receive an email when that's posted and where to access it.

I'll leave this slide up, but if you do have a question for the next moments, to the far bottom right of your screen, you're going to see three dots. Enter in the QA, send to all panelists, and we'll get those queued up. The panelists had been working feverishly throughout to, kind of, get those answered, but there still is a lot to get to. So for those putting it in the chat, if you could just put that in the Q&A, we'll get those in queue and go through those.

So with that, I will turn it back over to today's presenters and we can start to go through some of the questions that were entered.

ERICH DIETRICH: Hey, Daryl. This is Erich. I've been responding to questions in the chat, haven't been keeping up with them. So, happy to—I don't know if I missed any that we want to cover verbally.

DARYL FOX: Yes, I'm actually seeing you guys were able to keep up with that Q&A pretty well. Looks like over 60-some questions; most have been addressed in there. One question that I saw in both is the weekly JustGrants training sessions, are those the same each week or are those different topics that they hold?

ERICH DIETRICH: They do have different topics. The one that we focused on for the application submission, that's going to be the same every week. They have other topics on different dates and times. But the application webinar is basically going to be the same each week. It's going to walk you from the beginning to—if you haven't registered in SAM, it'll walk through Sam registration, to Grants.gov forms, and then to JustGrants forms. It'll walk through all of those steps and have demos of using JustGrants. It's not specific to a particular solicitation though, so just make sure if you attend those, you're also familiar with the specific requirements under our solicitation.

DARYL FOX: A particular person wanted to go back to the PowerPoint slide with eligible expenditures. If you have that slide number, I can go back to that just to reference. Wait a couple moments.
You didn't include training costs in your proposal. Can you add it if you can show how it helps your project?

ERICH DIETRICH: Yes, definitely. If you're referring to whatever was proposed to your congressional sponsor did not include training, but now you have a need for training, as long as that project title is one where you'd expect to see training or a training would be allowable, then you can certainly include that in your application budget.

DARYL FOX: “We will use and pay different professionals in our project such as trainers, translators, mediators, and evaluators. Should those costs be included in the modified total direct cost?”

ERICH DIETRICH: Modified total direct cost is just a calculation that's used for the base, for example, if you're using de minimis indirect costs and for other indirect cost methods. So I would say as far as personnel, if it's personnel working on a project that work for your agency, then they would be in the personnel section of the budget. And then they would of course count toward the modified total direct cost. If they are contractual personnel or personnel of a subrecipient, then those would be either in the Procurement Contract or Subrecipient line items. And then contractors do count toward indirect cost modified total direct cost subrecipients, there is a threshold that they can count toward.

DARYL FOX: “For subrecipients, do those have to go through a competitive bid process?”

ERICH DIETRICH: Subrecipients are different from what we call procurement contracts in that they do not need to be competed. They have other requirements for managing and making your subrecipients to include monitoring them, but they do not need to be competed. Procurement contracts over $250,000 have to meet the competitive requirements for local governments. States can follow their own competition requirements.

DARYL FOX: “If someone doesn't have the application that was originally submitted, is that accessible and how would one go about obtaining that?”

ERICH DIETRICH: We don't have anything that was submitted to your congressional sponsor, so if you needed that, you would have to go back to your congressional sponsor. But in terms for the grant application, we don't need whatever was submitted before. What we have is the appropriation law, which has the project title and it has the award amount. And so if you're in a situation where maybe you're taking over from somebody and you need to get that information for yourself, then you would have to go to the sponsor. But for purposes of the grant application, we are going to evaluate your grant application based on, you know, the proposal narrative and the project budget that you submit to us and whether it aligns to that project title that was in the joint explanatory statement, the JES.

DARYL FOX: For this person's particular county, UEI is a general UEI that covers all county departments. Will this be an issue or should they specify public safety department with a separate UEI?

ERICH DIETRICH: No. That's not an issue. Generally, you know, when a recipient is listed as the county or the city or a department under the county or city, it's understood that there's a legal connection—they're not separate entities. And so if the department is specified in the public law, it's perfectly fine for them to apply under the UEI legal name for just the city or county.

DARYL FOX: “Is there a resource or form to see examples of what other projects have used for goals, objectives, and deliverables?”

ERICH DIETRICH: I'm sure there are some examples, you know, on the internet in terms of generally, you know, making goals and objectives and deliverables SMART, we don't have any specific ones on a particular grant. But there are definitely some resources out there. I believe there's a link to SMART goals in the Applicant Resource Guide of expectations. But generally the projects under this program are so different, we don't really have examples to share. You should just develop them based on the specific goals of your project.

DARYL FOX: This particular department has two projects. “What is JES to make sure they're listing the exact name for the SF-424?”

ERICH DIETRICH: So the link to the FY24 lists of projects, which was in the solicitation, has the project title for that situation, for each of the projects, it'll have the specific project title. And for those that have received multiple, there's a—there's a few recipients that receive multiple projects. You will submit a separate application for each one.

DARYL FOX: “If a staff's person time, not paid or with government funds, is being reallocated to work on this federally funded project, is that considered supplanting?”

ERICH DIETRICH: Supplanting, like I said, I think I put in one of the chats. Supplanting questions are complex. It really depends on the situation. If you currently have— generally, if you have a current full-time staff person funded by a state or local budget— and then you want to move some of their time to the federal project and have the federal project take over their time—you generally would expect them to be backfilled— that previous position to be backfilled with other state and local resources, so you're not showing there's a reduction in the state and local cost because of the federal.

But like I said, supplanting questions can be pretty complex. So that would be ones where you might want to reach out to the program office and give more details, so we can understand what the situation is.

And I see Aaron and Jennifer are actively responding to the questions in the Q&As. I appreciate that.

DARYL FOX: And just as far as the timeframe, again, 48 months from March 2024 is February 2028. That's the last month that these funds can be spent, February 2028?

ERICH DIETRICH: Yeah. I mean, again, there's really no—the limits that we put in the solicitation just based on, you know, 12-month to a 48-month project period. So if somebody elected to have a project period starting March 9th—which is the date of an enactment—they don't have to, if they don't have a need to potentially obligate funds back to that date. They could set the date for the month in which they expect to begin obligations, and then they would set their end date, you know—if they need four years for that particular project, they would set their end date as 48 months from that time period.

As with any grant that we have in OJP, once your project has started, if it faces delays during implementation, there is an option to request an up to 12-month extension post-award, if that's needed. But in terms of the appropriated funds, there aren't limits on the timeframe.

DARYL FOX: “Will there be an audit at the end of the cycle?”

ERICH DIETRICH: By “audit,” it could mean single audit, which would be required if the recipient has received more than $750,000 federal funds within their financial year— which is not what we conduct, that is what's conducted by their auditor. But in terms of Office of Justice Program's (OJP) and our program offices, we conduct in-depth monitoring and our accounting office, OCFO, does financial monitoring and we select awards to be monitored annually and we use a risk assessment tool and various other decision-making if we decide that we are going to monitor an award. So it's not guaranteed but it is possible that these awards may be selected for in-depth monitoring by OJP during the life of the grant.

DARYL FOX: Going back to the JES, there's been a couple questions. Just confirming, it's the same thing as the project title and the FY24 appropriation list, or is it something different?

ERICH DIETRICH: That's correct. Yeah, we took the project listed in the joint explanatory statement and we put it into that PDF format to send out. So yes, that project title listed there is the project title from the JES. The reason we did that is the only copy of the JES we had was the Xerox copy and it's kind of hard to read, so we put them all into a different format.

DARYL FOX: It may be hard to describe it in detail. Do you have a general timeline on things as far as submissions and then when applicants will be contacted for materials and to officially award these?

ERICH DIETRICH: Right. The only timeline we can say is that we're going to be issuing awards on a rolling basis after the solicitation closes in June. We'll be processing and issuing awards on a rolling basis and we expect that all of the award notifications will go out by the end of the fiscal year, which is federal fiscal year which is September 30th.

DARYL FOX: This person's department's original funding request was for a single-year funding for a police social worker. Can they propose to use the total amount to fund that same position over two to three years?

ERICH DIETRICH: Yes, they can. Like I said, they're not limited based on whatever they proposed to their congressional as long as it's under that project title, which I'm assuming it was not specified in the project title how long. So under the terms of the grant, they can certainly apply for a longer project period that they need for their particular project.

DARYL FOX: This was addressed, but is local match required?

ERICH DIETRICH: No, match is not required under this program and I strongly advise you not to include any non-federal cost in your budget. You can certainly mention in the narrative if you're leveraging with other costs. But the budget that you submit with your application should be for federal costs only.

DARYL FOX: In this jurisdiction, city council’s requesting an award letter. “Is there an award letter being issued or should the Consolidated Appropriation Act be sufficient?”

ERICH DIETRICH: No, the act is not sufficient; it doesn't serve as a grant award agreement. So the reason that we're doing this application process is so that we can get the information that we need so that we can issue the award agreement. And so when I mentioned earlier that we'll be issuing award agreements on a rolling basis, that's what I was referring to. We will—as with any other grant that your organization may have received—DOJ will issue an actual award letter/award notification with an award agreement with the terms and conditions. They will need to be accepted by the authorized representative in order for the agreement to be active.

DARYL FOX: “If the project you submitted for initially has already been funded under another grant, can they just not submit during this application period?”

ERICH DIETRICH: You certainly shouldn't apply for duplicative funding but if there's other…So thinking again in terms of that project title, if there are other needs that your agency has for that particular project title, you could submit an application for those other needs. As long as it meets the guidance we've covered today.

There's also the flexibility of the project period. So let's say, for example, you have received funding for your project for the next year or two years. You don't anticipate needing these federal funds for the next year or two years but there's a flexibility to request up to a 48 project period. So you could submit now to receive the funding to take over for the other funding. So those are two options that you can have in terms of accessing these funds if something has changed—if you've received other funding for the project.

DARYL FOX: And…

ERICH DIETRICH: But I would say for that, for anybody who is kind of debating a situation like that or possibly debating whether they intend to apply at all, please contact your program office that sent you the invitation, just because congressional sponsors are interested in knowing that when we have somebody that says they do not want to apply. And like I said, there's some other options there that we can discuss of potentially using those funds.

DARYL FOX: Yeah, good segue to really the next question—kind of you already addressed it. “What if we think we'll need one year but then discover we actually need two? Can we make that change mid-cycle?”

ERICH DIETRICH: Yes. You know, like I mentioned, as with nearly every OJP grant, there are some grants that have restrictions on project length. But as for this grant, once it's active, you will have the ability to request a project period extension if there are delays faced during the implementation. I would say if you're a little uncertain about timeframe, give yourself a little more time because there's flexibility under the project period, because there's also the option to close the grant early. So let's say you ask for two years and you complete within a year, you can close out the grant early by submitting your final reports, making your final expenditures, and you can close it out early.

DARYL FOX: “Is there an opportunity to revise and resubmit an application if it's not—” If BJA rejects it is what the question is. “What will happen if applications are not sufficiently developed to meet BJA's requirements or standards?”

ERICH DIETRICH: Right. So there's minimal application requirements with just the attachments and the information you need to actually submit so that the application can be received. So then there's the situation where if information that you submit is not complete, there's a couple different options. If your budget is not complete, we can Change Request the budget back to you to fill in some details. If we don't have time to do that, by the time that we have to issue the award agreement, we will likely apply a withholding award condition that specifies the information that needs to be provided post-award. So, you will still receive the award agreement and the award, there just might be some additional information you need to do post-award to remove those holes so you can have access to funds.

But we won't—it's not a peer-reviewed grant process, so to the extent that we get an application that meets the minimum requirements and is submitted, we're going to issue the award. There just might be some additional steps post-award to access funds.

DARYL FOX: “Is there a limit on how many extensions are allowed?”

ERICH DIETRICH: Under current OJP policy, we are generally limiting to one extension of up to 12 months, although there are some criteria for exceptions to that. There are some changes going on in the 2CFR200 regarding no-cost extensions. OJP hasn't revised its policy yet, but that's our current policy.

DARYL FOX: The next one's: “We need to purchase data collection software to help monitor this and other programs. Can the one-time setup cost be covered by the grant, even if the software will be used in the future for this and other programs?”

ERICH DIETRICH: I would say likely yes, depending on the situation and the project title, but likely that upfront cost for data collection system that will be used for this project, generally there's an expectation that such a cost will continue to be used after the award period has ended. Unlike equipment, it doesn't have a disposition with it when you're talking about IT systems. But it's always good for questions like that, once you're developing your budget feel free to reach out to your program office. Or post-award, talk to your grant manager about the situation.

DARYL FOX: It's the end of the queue now. We still have some time. We're 99 questions. We get one more, we'll get a hundred.

Thanks to everybody that's been patiently entering those. Thanks to the panelists who have been answering those.

ERICH DIETRICH: And I did want to cover, again, in the beginning when we mentioned the deadlines for solicitation, that's the BJA solicitation. As I understand it, at least OVC has slightly different deadlines for their solicitation. So for all the recipients, make sure you're following the invitation and the deadlines that you have received in your solicitation.

DARYL FOX: “Is there a deadline to finish expending funds?”

ERICH DIETRICH: The deadline for expending funds will be the dates that you enter for your project period and what the project period ends up being. So all funds have to be properly obligated during the period of performance. You will then have—after the period of performance, after that your project end date—you will have a liquidation period of 120 days. And then liquidation period, you can expend, meaning you can pay the properly incurred obligations through that period if you needed to.

DARYL FOX: This one is likely answered in the Q&A, but is there a list of contacts that people receive for the grants, like grant managers and financial contacts?

ERICH DIETRICH: Those will be in the grant award agreement when it is released. We don't have awards yet, so we don't have grant managers assigned yet. But again, you can— During the application period, if you have programmatic-type questions, please refer— For BJA, we have our joint email address, which is on this website. And for OJJDP, OVC, and NIJ, you can send those questions to the person who sent you the invitation.

DARYL FOX: We'll kind of just step back and just remind everybody once again that the recording transcript and PowerPoint for today will be posted. So everybody will receive an email when and where to access today's presentation, the slides and links.

So we do still have a couple more moments today. We can just hang tight and if you have any more questions, the panelists will be here.

Another question has come in. “Should subrecipients use the same financial management controls and systems?”

ERICH DIETRICH: I think financial management controls that are best practices probably should be used by every organization that's managing grants in terms of being able to separate grants—not comingling, separate accounting, being able to conduct reports for their use. So internal controls in terms of not having a single individual with control over all of the approval processes. So those are all standard internal controls and financial management accounting systems that we would expect for anybody who's managing federal funds.

DARYL FOX: And if a particular person has been working for months to renew SAM.gov registration and have run into many issues—would have their own entity and have their own help desk, obviously—but how does one— Is there a chance to apply for an extension to submit in Grants.gov or does that have to be addressed prior?

ERICH DIETRICH: Yeah, we're not in a position to do extensions for the solicitation right now. I would say that if you are in a SAM-entity validation situation, which sounds like they are, they can send the information that they have received most recently from SAM: deadline, they would need an EBS ticket. They could send it to their program office contact and we could potentially find some information out. But that SAM process registration will have to be active before you can complete that first step, which is the Grants.gov.

DARYL FOX: And if the funds are being used for a housing program, can the funds be used for acquisitions of property?

ERICH DIETRICH: I would just respond to that, as to the Q&A, this program cannot be used to acquire real property. And for the next question on when the grant payments will be made, the first step is we need the application, we need to process the award, then we will issue the award agreement. Then the organization will need to accept the award agreement depending on whether they're already established in the U.S. Treasury ASAP system—that step might need to be taken. And then generally, there'll be a few administrative steps upfront to have access to funds. For example, if we can't clear the budget. So given all that, I can't set a timeframe on when the access of funds will be granted. It's dependent on all those steps taking place.

DARYL FOX: Okay. So we're nearing the end of today's time. Erich, if there's anything and in closing you want to mention before we close out.

ERICH DIETRICH: No, just wanted to thank everybody. An extremely engaged audience with lots of great questions. Appreciate you staying this whole time. Thanks especially to you, Daryl, and to Jennifer and to Erin for presenting. And again, just to reiterate, if you have, you know, programmatic-type questions, please reach out to the office that invited you. And I look forward to working with you on getting your application submitted and on to your grants.

DARYL FOX: Great. So on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and our panelists, we want to thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.