Loading...
CISD 2002/07/23July 23, 2002 MEMORANDUM TO: Jim Witt, City Manager FROM: Clay Phillips, Deputy City Manager SUBJECT: CEDC Grant Meeting with CISD As you know, I met with Ralph Seely and Vonita White today concerning the status of the grants recently received by CISD. The meeting was precipitated by your recent memo in which you notified the various grant recipients that additional funding was available based upon our latest sales tax projections. Approximately $194,000.00 is available to the CISD. As such, the CISD had several questions, each of which are outlined below along with the direction I gave them regarding how to proceed. Can the District amend their original grants to include additional funds for teacher salaries where actual salaries are higher than the projections used to formulate the grant requests? The situation arose in all of the grants where salaries were a part of the requested funding. The District was able to hire experienced teachers for these programs resulting in a higher starting salary. The amount needed to fully fund this issue is approximately $85,000.00. Based on our discussions yesterday, I instructed the District to amend any of the original grants necessary to request the accurate amount of salary dollars necessary to fund the program as presented. In order to avoid confusion, I suggested they use the actual grant application used originally and add the new information in the appropriate place(s) on the application in bold type. In so doing, the CEDC will have the existing grant language and funding in front of them along with the easily distinguishable amending information. The District will be submitting amended grant requests as outlined above as soon as possible. They plan to have the items on their August 31 board meeting agenda as you and I discussed yesterday. Can they submit additional grants for additional programs in order to use the remaining funds allocated to CISD this year? ($194,000 - $85,000 = $109,000) Grant Fund Meeting/CISD 7/23/02 Page 2 of 2 I informed the district that they could submit additional grants for additional programs. The CISD will be submitting two new grants in September or October. This discussion did lead us to review how much of the allotment each district could request given the fact that the total allocation is based upon sales tax projections. They do not want to find themselves in the last quarter of any given grant period with fewer dollars than anticipated, particularly if the grant is salary related. Should each District leave a portion of its allotment in reserve should a sales tax shortfall materialize? This is an issue that the CEDC has most likely already tackled. If not, it should be considered. How and when are the payments received from the CEDC? The issue of when payments are due is spelled out clearly in the grant agreements. Most have a first payment due date of August 1, 2002 with a quarterly payment schedule thereafter. The Summer Literacy grant appears to have a lump sum payment date of May 15, 2002. Two questions remain unresolved at this point concerning payments. Does the CISD need to request payment or does the CEDC make the first payment as scheduled in the grant agreement without any further action on the part of the CISD? I was not able to give the CISD a definitive answer regarding this issue. We most likely need to respond to each ISD regarding this question. Can the CISD and other Districts expect the first quarterly payment to include the total necessary for equipment and materials purchases along with one quarter of the salary funding? In other words, will the first payment be larger than the subsequent quarterly payment by an amount equal to the equipment and material requirements? The Graphic Design grant, and possibly others, have some equipment and materials purchases included in the projected expenditures. If the total amount for the start-up materials and equipment is not provided in the first payment along with the first quarter salary funding, each ISD will be operating short on funding for each grant that includes start-up materials and equipment. If the answer is that all payments will be quarterly unless otherwise noted in the agreement, the CISD will also seek an amendment to the funding for the Graphic Design grant to allow them to have start-up funding in place at the outset of the program. Finally, Vonita would like to meet with a member of the CEDC to be better prepared to fulfill the CEDC's wishes concerning the grant request formats.