Watershed Assistance (319) Grantees,
Governor Lynch will soon receive correspondence from the US Environmental Protection Agency, under pressure from Congress, urging him to speed up the spending of 319 funds, or possibly risk losing some funds, even if the funds are obligated via contract between the state and the grantee. This means that we need to rapidly tighten up project delivery, completion, invoicing and payment for 319 grants. To put ourselves in the most favorable position with respect to unspent funds, please keep the following in mind:
- For projects due to expire, please submit final invoices and documentation expeditiously. Many projects are due to expire December 31. We expect to have all final reports, invoices and documentation within 30 days of the contract end date. New contracts will require all documentation to be received by the contract end date.
- For new projects that will be going to G&C over the winter, and in future grants rounds, we will to the extent possible generate payment schedules to draw down funds at a steady rate throughout the project rather than having most of the funds tied to large payments at the end of the grant period.
- We will be checking on projects within the first 6 months of grant approval to determine whether deliverables are being completed on time. If a project is not performing, we will terminate it as early as possible so that funds can be re-programmed instead of lost completely. Re-programming funds takes time and makes it very difficult to expend grant funds within the allotted time.
- We will generally not grant time extensions, except in rare circumstances. For new projects that may take a long time to complete, we will prefer phasing such that a smaller amount of funds is committed with future phases coming from future grants.
Your project manager will be in touch with you throughout your project, but always feel free to contact him/her if you have any questions. Thank you in advance for working with us to speed up our expenditure rates and most of all for the good environmental work that you do.
Sincerely,
Eric Williams