First Steps

First Steps in Managing Your Grant
You need to be familiar with at least five essential documents to start up a grant. They include the following:

1.    Original proposal
2.    Budget
3.    Regulations for the grant
4.    Notice of award
5.    Board Agenda Item (BAI)

A grant is an award of funds from a funding agency to SPPS to provide services or products within a limited time frame, and often for a specific target population. The proposal, budget, regulations, and notice of award set the project parameters. The BAI is an official way of approving the acceptance of the grant for the district.

After becoming familiar with these documents, now is the time to take care of specific activities that will allow you to start the grant management. These include the following:

•    Sending the grant announcement
•    Re-negotiating the budget
•    Training on grant systems

Sending the Grant Announcement
Before you do anything else, be sure to notify personnel at SPPS about your recent award. Send an e-mail announcing the grant. Be sure to include everyone who was included in writing and planning the grant. After this announcement is sent, work with the Office of Innovation and Development to send an announcement to the greater Saint Paul community. The Office of Innovation and Development will compile the announcement and work with the Office of Communications to notify local newspapers, radio, and television, as necessary. Send this announcement within one week of your award notification.

Re-negotiating the Budget
When you receive the letter saying that you have received a grant, there are several questions that you need to answer in order to re-negotiate the budget. Answer these questions.

Did the grant award match the grant request at 100%? If you can answer yes to this question, then your budget is most likely not going to change. Examine your budget and the grant award letter to determine if this is the case. If the grant award and the original budget do not match, you will have to change your original budget (see question 2).
What changes do I have to make to my budget? You have determined that the grant award is for less than your original request. In this case, you will have to create a new budget and send this update to the Federal Program Officer. The changes you make to your budget depend on the magnitude of the changes. One, changes of less than ten percent of the total grant may just mean moving money from one budget code to the next. Keep in mind that the Program Officer may have already determined what changes should be made. For example, if there is no money for evaluation, you should cut this budget code. Stay in contact with you Program Officer in order to understand the rules he/she wants you to follow. Two, when a budget is cut by more than ten percent, large programmatic changes are necessary. Work with your program team and the Office of Innovation and Development to make these changes. Key questions to ask include, 1) Have activity timelines and objectives changed? 2) What costs have been eliminated or significantly reduced and what impact will these changes have on the successful implementation of the project? and 3) What amounts are required for matching? Where will the matching funds come from? How will you document the match? This re-negotiation process will take some time and will require the Superintendent to sign off on the new changes. Plan an extended period of time (2-4 weeks) with your Program Officer to make these changes.

To see more information on working with budgets, visit the Working With the Budget section.

Training on Grant Systems
If you have not had training on SPPS financial systems, such as FMS or iProcurement, now is the time to take this training. As a Grant Coordinator, you will be using FMS and iProcurement to manage your budget and to set up contracts. Contact Colleen Shields at 767-3472 to sign up for this training.