EECBG Grant Application Process Presentation (Text Version)
First Slide: The EECBG Grant Application Process
Below is a text version of the June 22, 2009 EECBG Grant Application Process presentation.
Johanna Zetterberg:
Hi everyone. We're gonna go ahead and get started. Thank you very much for joining us today. My name is Johanna Zetterberg. I'm with the U.S. Department of Energy and welcome to our application process webinar on the energy efficiency and conservation block grant program. We've got a great presentation for you today on a topic that I know is near and dear to all of our hearts. It's how to actually apply for and receive the block grant funding. This is one of a series of webinars that we're doing on various block grant topics including planning and strategy development in an upcoming session. Okay.
You can register for webinars in the same place where you registered for this one, so please go ahead and visit our website for upcoming webinars. You've probably been there already since you're here, so you know where to go. While you're on that page, you can poke around our solutions center which is where we've posted past webinar materials and other really important resources for you as you are conducing your planning and strategy development.
Now, to save you from furiously scribbling every word from today's presentation, the slides from this webinar will be available online on our website on that webinar page and also sent via email to everyone who is registered. Now, a few housekeeping things before we get started on the presentation. We are gonna leave a fair amount of time for your questions and our answers to those questions at the end of the presentation. You can submit questions anytime including right now throughout the presentation. In the lower right hand corner of your screen, you'll see a little Q&A box. Please put your questions there.
Now, you are all muted today, so what we're gonna do is we will be reading your questions as well as answering them and since today's presentation is focused on the application process, we'd ask you to direct your questions to that topic. If you have other program related questions, please join our other webinars on those topics to get those answered. And also, please see our frequently asked questions database because we may have already answered your questions and you can access that from the main program web page which is www.eecbg.energy.gov. Once again, that's www.eecbg.energy.gov and look for the FAQs button. Now, without any further ado, I'd like to introduce our speakers today. We have Lisa Kuzniar and Ralph Mine from the National Energy Technology Laboratory and they're gonna walk you through the application process. So Lisa, thank you and please take it away.
Lisa Kuzniar:
Okay, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the EECBG Application Process Webinar. I am the contracting officer for the EECBG Funding Opportunity Announcement or FOA as we call it for short. I'm actually located at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia. I have Ralph Mine here with me and he is actually the project officer for the EECBG fellow and we're going to hopefully present a lot of information that you will be able to use so you'll be able to get your application in without any hiccups at all, we hope.
Next Slide: EECBG Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) Information
Lisa Kuzniar:
This slide is just a summary of all of the amendments that have been issued under the EECBG fellow. I wanted to bring up one thing. There have been some questions relating to the confusion with the number of amendments that are showing in grants.gov and what the actual number of amendments that have been issues in FedConnect and there's just some system issues with grants.gov that every time they go in and do a system change, it records as a amendment. So the official list of amendments is actually in FedConnect and as of today, we are actually getting ready to issue another amendment to the Funding Opportunity Announcement, so this slide will need to be revised for any ____ presentations to show that amendment four is being issued today, which is June 22. That amendment is allowing another avenue for submitting applications in lieu of FedConnect.
A little bit of background, there have been some issues and some problems with applicants getting their CCR registration done. My understanding is there's been a backlog for three to four weeks and also some applicants are having trouble getting their applications uploaded in FedConnect. So we're issuing an amendment to the ____ which would be amendment number four. It will be dated today and it will be posted, if not later on this evening, by first thing tomorrow morning and that is allowing applicants to submit their application package, their block grant application package via email to eecbg@netl.doe.gov. And that is the same email address that we have been taking questions under, so if an applicant chooses to submit their application to the EECBG email, they in the subject line of the email, they will need to identify application and then use the unique identification code. And the unique identification code for the various entities is spelled out on page 14 and 15 of the Funding Opportunity Announcement.
Let me repeat that one more time. If an applicant chooses to submit their EECBG application via the email at eecbg@netl.doe.gov, in the subject line of the email they need to identify application and then use their unique identification code for their respective entity.
And you guys are the first ones to hear that because, like I said, we are currently working on that amendment. It is going through internal review now and we hope to have it issued by close of business today.
Next Slide: Registration Requirements
Lisa Kuzniar:
The next slide is pulled directly out of the Funding Opportunity Announcement and it goes over the registration requirements. This is just going through getting a DUNS number and doing the CCR registration and as you can see, the slide says it takes at least ten days. Well, that's where some of the problems have come up in that it's taking actually three to four weeks and so because of those issues, that's why we've allowed another avenue to submit applications. Next Slide: Q: Do I access the FOA at Grants.gov or at FedConnect?
Lisa Kuzniar:
Another question that a lot of applicants have had is do I access the FOA at grants.gov or at FedConnect, and you need to go in and access the FOA at FedConnect. The FOA is also available at the EECBG website, but that's not the official document of record. The official FOA document is on FedConnect. Other applicants are asking, "What do I need to do at grants.gov then?" The only thing you need to do at grants.gov is download the application package that you're doing to submit. You can find it there by clicking on "apply for grants" and then clicking on "download a grant application package". You do not need to be registered in grants.gov to download an application package. And when you go to download your application package, you need to have the right version of Adobe and that is Adobe Reader 9. So two things that you need to pay attention to is that you do not need to be registered in grants.gov to download the application package and you need to have Adobe Reader 9 and that is the only action that you need to do in grants.gov.
Next Slide: Q: How do I find the FOA in FedConnect?
Lisa Kuzniar:
The next page is just a snapshot of FedConnect and where you would need to go to click on to find the Funding Opportunity Announcement. The bottom arrow is pointing up to the ready, set, go. That is a document that has a lot of valuable information regarding the FedConnect system and how to navigate the system. I advise you to pull that up and read through it if you have not already done so.
Next Slide: Under Search Criteria, select Issuing Office and type NETL. Click on Search.
Lisa Kuzniar:
If you're still looking - if you're looking for the FOA under FedConnect, you need to go in and use search criteria and you need to select issuing office and type in NETL and then click on search. Once you do that, you will get a list of all the Funding Opportunity Announcements that have been issued by NETL. You need to scroll down ‘til you find the EECBG Funding Opportunity Announcement. And once you do, you click on that and then it will bring you up to the EECBG page in FedConnect that contains the announcement and the subsequent amendments.
Next Slide: Click on: Recovery Act - EECBG program to access the FOA and all attachments
Lisa Kuzniar:
The amendment that I referenced earlier will also be posted here in FedConnect. It will actually be the last document posted and you'll need to scroll down to get that latest version. The earliest versions are shown at the top. The latest versions are shown at the bottom and up ‘til now, all attachments have been posted with each amendment. The contract specialists made a decision that every time she issued an amendment, she would just go ahead and post the attachments with that amendment so you could look there and get everything and _____ which attachments had been updated, if any, with that amendment.
Next Slide: Q: Is the application package from grants.gov all I need to submit as my EECBG application?
Lisa Kuzniar:
The question is, is the application package from grants.gov all I need to submit at my EECBG application and the answer is no. The application package that you download in grants.gov is a template that you must attach or add other documents to.
Next Slide: Q: Where do I find the remainder of the application documents?
Lisa Kuzniar:
Where do I find the remainder of the application documents? The remainder of the application documents with the exception of a standard form 424A and the documents that are created by the applicant themselves are located as attachments to the Funding Opportunity Announcement in FedConnect. So when you go back to the earlier page when it showed you the body and the attachments that were listed, those are the attachments that you need to pull as part of your application package. So basically, your application documents that you're going to put together come from three main sources. They're gonna come from the grants.gov application package. They're gonna come attachments to the FOA that are located in FedConnect and then there are gonna be some documents that are created by the applicant themselves.
Next Slide: Name of Document - Location of Document
Lisa Kuzniar:
The next couple of slides is pulled directly from the funding opportunity announcement and identifies the type of document of the application documents and where they're located. The first one on the list is the standard form 424 or the Application for Federal Assistance. That form is located in the grants.gov form package and you will pull that down out of grants.gov when you download that application package.
The next form is the Project Performance Site Location. It is also in grants.gov form package. One thing I want to note about the Project Performance Site Location form is that it has a limit of seven sites. We've gotten several question on I don't have enough room to enter all the sties that I'm going to be doing work at. At this time, all I can - what you need to do is just enter the primary sites or the first seven and then leave the rest. You can either include them as an attachment to the application or just identify the first seven sites and that will be sufficient for your application package.
The next document is the Project Activity File. The Project Activity File is included at attachment B1 to the Funding Opportunity Announcement. So you would download that in FedConnect. It is a fillable PDF file and the instructions say to save it as one file, but please do not save it as one file. That causes errors on our end when trying to download the application. So if you have multiple Project Activity Files, you need to save them as separate files. It is very important under that one. So even though the instructions tell you to save everything as one large file, do not do it. Save your individual Project Activity Files as separate files and load them into your application package.
The standard form 424A is the budget information form and it is actually located on a website and the website is given there in the spreadsheet. The Budget Justification File is created by the applicant. It basically includes the budget detail and the rationale on how the cost estimates were derived for the proposed cost. That is actually created by the applicant.
The next file is the Subaward Budget File, if applicable. There are some thresholds to determine of a Subaward Budget File has to be submitted, that those thresholds are included in the Funding Opportunity Announcement. That file, if it is needed is created by the applicant.
The Financial Management Assessment form has to be submitted by each applicant and it is included as attachment B2 to the Funding Opportunity Announcement. The EECS strategy format is included as attachment D. That strategy format is for units of local government and Indian tribes only. So if you are a unit of local government or an Indian tribe and you're submitting a strategy, you would need to include attachment D as part of your application package and that is attachment D to the Funding Opportunity Announcement. For states, the format that they need to use for their strategy is attachment E to the Funding Opportunity Announcement and that would be the format that they would use for their strategy.
The next file is the Assurances file. That is created by the applicant. It's two assurances that are required. One is the _____ assurance and one is the authorized representative assurance and basically, the applicant just kind of need to reiterate that language that is in the FOA. They're gonna provide their written assurance that they're going to pay prevailing wages on projects that are going to be using Recovery Act funds and an authorized representative assurance is a written assurance if they've designated somebody to submit the application on their behalf. There is more detailed information on those assurances in the Funding Opportunity Announcement.
The next file is the SF-LLL or Disclosure of Lobbying Activities. This is an optional form and it's only needed if you engage in lobbying activities.
The last form listed is the NEPA information forms.
Male:
It's boring as hell.
Lisa Kuzniar:
That is attachment B3 and it actually requires a signature, so that form will have to be signed by the applicant and the signature scanned and submitted as part of the application package. The NEPA form is not needed for all the activities under the block grant program. You need to look at pages 19 through 21 of the Funding Opportunity Announcement and it will identify all of the activities under the block grant program and it will give you, and also identifies those that require a NEPA form and those that do not.
Next Slide: Q: Where do I find the attachments?
Lisa Kuzniar:
Where do I find the attachments? This is a snapshot from FedConnect. The attachments are, as you can see where the arrow is pointing, they're listed under the body of the document and when the last amendment is issued, you'll see those as amendment four in those attachments listed there.
Next Slide: Q: How do I submit a question?
Lisa Kuzniar:
The next one is how do I submit a question? Questions that come in through FedConnect need to come in through registered users, so you need to register with FedConnect and then you need to sign in.
Next Slide: Critical Step: Join the Response Team
Lisa Kuzniar:
Once you sign in, you will be able to see the questions that have - well, no, once you sign in, I apologize, you have to join the response team. You need to join the response team to view questions and to submit questions and also to submit your application package if you choose to submit it through FedConnect and not the EECBG email address that will be coming out in the last amendment here.
Next Slide: Once you've joined the response team -
Lisa Kuzniar:
Once you've joined the response team, the inbox will contain replies to questions already submitted and also you need to click on "new" in the inbox and once you click on "new" you will get a little email back that will allow you to submit your questions in FedConnect.
Next Slide: Q: My outbox shows my question as "queued". Why hasn't it gotten to DOE?
Lisa Kuzniar:
My outbox shows my question as "queued". Why hasn't it gotten to DOE? In Fed Connect, queued does not mean that your question is stuck. It's just that it has not been released yet. I'm sorry, not been released. Queued means that DOE has the question and is preparing an answer and that is a little confusing and I know we have a lot of questions and comments that we have not been able to post answers lately. Please be patient with us. We're getting bombarded with questions. A lot of them are getting more project specific that require responses from outside sources. We are actively as soon as we get any responses, getting them posted and we'll do our best to get as many out as we can prior to the deadline.
Next Slide: Q: What documents should be in my application package?
Lisa Kuzniar:
What documents should be in my application package? Depending on if you're submitting a strategy with your initial application or not, there are different documents or forms that need to be included. If you're not going to submit an energy efficiency and conservation strategy with your application, you will need to submit the SF424, which is the Application for Federal Assistance that you get out of grants.gov, the Project Performance Site Locations Form, which is also downloaded out of grants.gov, the Project Activity file, noting an activity under Activity Area 1 that you're going to be developing your EECS. You would need to do the financial management assessment. That form is an attachment to the FOA. You would need to do assurances and submit your _____ form as applicable.
Next Slide: Q: I'm ready to submit my EECS now, but I'd like to review some samples first.
Lisa Kuzniar:
I'm ready to submit my EECS now, but I'd like to review some samples first. What this is directing you to is the solution center on the main website at www.eecbg.energy.gov. This solution center has examples of various strategies that could be helpful to you in developing your strategy for your application.
Next Slide: Q: What documents do I submit with my application if my EECS is ready?
Lisa Kuzniar:
What documents do I submit with my application if my EECS is ready or your ready to submit your strategy? Like before, you need the 424, which is the application, the Project Performance Site Location Form. You will need to submit Project Activity Files, one per activity and remember, save them separately, not in one document even though the instructions tell you to do that, you need to save them separately. You will need to submit your 424A, which is your budget information form, the Budget Justification File, which is your rationale for the estimated costs that you're proposing, the Subaward Budget File if applicable to what you're doing and you would look at the thresholds that are outlined in the FOA. The Financial Management Assessment Form and that is an attachment to the FOA. You would download that, fill it out and attach it as part of your application package. And you would submit your strategy either on attachment D or attachment E, your assurances, the lobbying form if applicable and any NEPA forms that are applicable.
Next Slide: Q: What goes in the Budget Justification File?
Lisa Kuzniar:
This question goes in the budget justification file. This slide just gives you some examples of what you would put in there, identifying that the proposed costs if they're based on competitive bids or quotes or catalog pricing, the labor rates or published rates or actual labor rates. If you're proposing travel costs, are they based on internet quotes or federal travel regulations? This is just some samples of what your budget justification file should contain.
Next Slide: Q: How do I submit my application?
Lisa Kuzniar:
The next slide is how do I submit my application. If you choose to submit your application through FedConnect, you will need to sign in to do this and join - and you already joined the response team so you're already a member of the response team. You will go under "create" under "responses" and this will allow you to upload your final application file from your computer that you've sent your application package. Once you hit create, it will take you through a series of steps to upload your application.
Next Slide: Q: I've submitted my application. What do I do now?
Lisa Kuzniar:
I've submitted my application, what do I do now? You need to print and safe. If you submit your application through FedConnect, you need to print and save the confirmation page you received from FedConnect. A lot of times, there's been some confusion. There are two dates and times associated with that confirmation page. The first is the date of record or the date it was submitted and the second date is the day that DOE received. The dates may not match, but that's okay. Just print the notice out or the confirmation page out for your record.
And that concludes the presentation.
Male:
Great, thanks very much Lisa. That was very informative. I see a handful of questions coming through there. Do you want to - you and Ralph want to start digging into some?
Lisa Kuzniar:
Sure. The first question I'm seeing is does the Davis-Bacon assurance have to be signed? If so, by whom? The actual assurance itself does not have to be signed. We take it as being signed with your submittal of the application package and the SF424 will take an electronic signature, so whoever signs the 424 is essentially the person who is signing the assurances.
On the environmental questionnaire, the very first item asked for a solicitation number. We are not sure what that is. The solicitation number is essentially the funding opportunity number or the FOA number and that is DE-FOA-0000013. So it's five zeros, one three. So when you see solicitation number, it is actually - it's also referring to the FOA number. Those are one and the same.
The next question is our county has programs which would meet the EECBG program requirements; however, our county is not eligible to receive a direct allocation. Can the county submit an application or must the state submit the application on behalf of the county? Neither. The county cannot submit an application since they are not on the allocation list to receive a direct grant under the block grant program and the state cannot submit on behalf of the county; however, the county can work with the state for subcontracting opportunities ‘cause the state is required to do 60 percent subcontracting to those units of local government who are not eligible for direct grants.
Next question, do you have a recommended format for the assurances? Can I use one created by another federal agency? There is no recommended format for the assurances. Basically, it would just be a paragraph for each providing your written assurance for the authorized representative if that is needed and for the Davis-Bacon.
Next question, for the Davis-Bacon assurance document, are we - are there any forms or examples posted that we could follow? I do not think there are any examples posted at this time. Like I said, it is pretty simple. You would basically probably be reiterating the language that is in the FOA. You're just saying you're providing your written assurance to adhere to and it would basically be an individual paragraph. You could actually just do them in a Word document and then scan them and upload them with your file.
It says can an SF424A.xls form be used for the _____ budget file document. The instructions say created by the applicant. Yes.
Can you give us a sample of a budget justification? There is a written sample of a budget justification. It would vary depending on the cost elements that are going in for your budget. Typically what we see is if you have personnel costs, we like to see the rationale that you're using to derive these personnel costs. It would be the number of - the categories, the labor categories that are being proposed, percentage of time, labor rate information. For travel, it would be the number of trips being proposed, the destination and the number of people traveling. For equipment, you would list any equipment that's gonna be purchased or supplies being purchased and the basis for those items and each one of those and so forth and so on and some of those may apply to some and some not to another. It just depends. For subcontracting activity what we typically look for is if those subcontracts are gonna be issued on a competitive process or are they going to be sole sourced and if they're going to be sole sourced, what's the basis for that sole source, what the subcontracting activity is for, what they're going to be doing and like I said, it can vary depending on the individual applicant and what their budget includes.
Next question is you mentioned not saving the B1 as one file, but as separate if we have multiple projects. Does the same apply to the SF424A Budget Justification, Assurances, basically all others dealing with multiple projects? The activity sheets need to be saved as separate files, however your budget form, the 424A, the budget justification and the assurances can also be saved as separate files, but they could address all the multiple projects being proposed. The assurances would apply to your entire application. The budget justification and the SF424A would be a roll up or induce the entire project cost being proposed. So you'd only really need to do one of those and not a separate one for each separate project.
If we submit a proposed activity attachment B1 and strategy attachment D now with our EECBG application, may we revise the proposed activity and strategy before the implementation phase if another vendor proposes a more energy efficient project? Yes, you may and that would probably happen prior to the award being made and through negotiations with the assigned contract specialist and project officer responsible for putting your word in place.
The next question is how will a confirmation be sent if the application is sent via the email address? At this time, there are more formal instructions on what the confirmation is going to look like, but ____ just be an email back to the person saying, "Application received," in the subject line.
The estimated - here's a question. Did I understand that the electronic signature submitted is all that is needed for the 424, assurances and NEPA? The electronic signature will suffice for the 424, the 424A and the assurances; however, the NEPA form itself requires an actual signature and you will need to sign that, physically sign that and scan it and upload it with your application.
Do states need to submit the NEPA document and Project Performance Site Locations with their plan if they do not yet know the locations of projects?
Male:
No, they basically want - if you go through a selection process, once you have identified a project and a contractor or a sub grant, once the work is identified, you then will need to submit the NEPA forms prior to activities or any funding being spent towards those activities, but you do not have to submit that with your application. It needs to be submitted once the activity in the site has been selected.
Lisa Kuzniar:
Does the financial management form need to be physically signed? Off the top of my head, I will say yes, it requires a signature because there is a signature line on there. The ____ _____ form you will need to sign the financial form and submit it with your - scan it and submit it and upload it with your application package. There is a lot of room for error here. How flexible will DOE be if the forms we create ourselves are not designed/filled out correctly? DOE will be very flexible. If the information is not there or exactly organized the way we have requested, the awarding agency will work with the applicant to get the information and get it in the correct box that it needs to be and the correct format.
And we're skimming through. Question, what is the timeline for approval of applications and distribution of funds? The answer is I don't have an official timeline. I ____ hope that once after the closing date of the Funding Opportunity Announcement that awards will be getting put in place as early as 30 to 60 days after the closing date of the announcement.
Another question, it says if an application submitted is incomplete or in error, will there be opportunities for corrections/amendments to preserve the grant funding to be awarded to the municipality. Yes, there will be opportunities to correct any errors.
Next question is we are doing a retrofit for the courthouse and have been allocated funds. Can the assistant county engineer sign the NEPA document or can it be submitted at a later date?
Male:
Depending upon the retrofits and what activities are being done whether it is a categorical exclusion. You'll have to look in the ______ as to what activities you're doing as to whether it requires a NEPA determination up front or not. IF it's not a categorical exclusion, you would need to sign the NEPA forms prior to doing those activities.
Lisa Kuzniar:
Another question, we have prepared several activities including activity one for the EECS. Do we wait to send the other activities after approval of the EECS or at the same time? You can send them all at the same time.
Male:
And you can send them even before. You're required to submit the EECS within 120 days. You can submit the activities prior to submitting the strategy for review by DOE.
Lisa Kuzniar:
Is that it?
The question is ______ if our city is not on the list, we cannot submit an application and that is correct. If you are not on the allocation list that's included as attachment A to the Funding Opportunity Announcement, you cannot submit an application under this announcement for a direct grant, but you should work with your state for any subcontracting opportunities.
If we have already submitted our application minus the strategy, when can we expect to receive our initial award? And I think the answer ______ remain as the other answer did, we would hope that we would start working these actions anywhere from 30 to 60 days after the closing date of the Funding Opportunity Announcement. So hopefully you will be hearing from the administrating or the awarding agency within 30 to 60 days after the closing day of the announcement.
And I think we've come to the end of the questions, those questions that are specifically related to the application process. I'd like to thank you for your time and I hope that the information presented her will help you in putting your application package together for the block grant Funding Opportunity Announcement and I just want to remind you again to keep your eyes open for the upcoming amendment to the Funding Opportunity Announcement, which is going to be amendment number four and it's going to allow another avenue for the submitting of your application package through the EECBG@netl.doe.gov website and if you choose to submit your application through the email address as opposed to FedConnect, in the subject line if your email you need to identify application and then your unique identification code. I'd like to thank you for your time. Good afternoon.
Male:
Thank you very much, Lisa, that was excellent and I'd just like to remind everyone that the slides from the presentation are available on our website on the web cast info page off of eecbg.energy.gov so please feel free to go there for these and others. Thanks very much. Have a great day.