What are the best ways to access my municipality’s expertise and capacity for managing a grant or how best to partner with other entities?

There is no one-size-fits-all in municipal grant administration. Each municipality is unique in its structure and capacity. It is also important to consider political will and interest.

A municipality’s ability to properly manage a grant requires the application of sound management principles including budgeting, communication, data collection, internal control, and reporting.  As part of the decision to seek out grant funding, municipalities must evaluate the status of their compliance infrastructure to determine their ability to manage any grants that they do receive.  Regardless of the funding source, grant awards are made with the understanding that funding will be used for intended purposes and in a responsible and accountable manner, which is a responsibility that not all municipalities have expertise with or capacity to handle. In particular, when the federal government is the funding source, municipalities may face significant compliance challenges related to the complexities of the Uniform Guidance (2 CFR Part 200 et seq.) or program-specific regulations and can generally expect to be held accountable through the Single Audit process. Additionally, certain private funding sources can have requirements that are just as complicated as federal requirements. As such, municipalities must develop strategies to build or reinforce their compliance infrastructure and general management capacity. These strategies include maximizing internal resources, partnering with other entities, and acquiring new support.

Maximizing Internal Resources

One of the best ways to understand a municipality’s expertise is to perform a situational analysis of the existing organization and structure to identify strengths, weaknesses, and needs, including staffing. This includes assessing the overall structure for managing grants, personnel involvement, and expertise, along with assessing existing grant programs and administration.  

Based on the results of the initial assessment, a municipality can establish teams and working groups to convene for specific purposes and phases in grant administration or project management. Having assessed strengths and areas of need during the initial phase, teams and working groups can be readily activated based on skill and capacity. This grant team can work collectively to share knowledge and cultivate opportunities and capacity. This process may uncover many resources that already exist within the organization that could be adapted to form a part of a larger compliance infrastructure. For example, a city’s housing department may already have developed detailed tools for risk assessment and subrecipient monitoring that are used in connection with administering U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant funds, or an emergency management department may have detailed time tracking protocols developed for tracking post-disaster Federal Emergency Management Agency Public Assistance, both of which could be more widely applied to general grants management.

Partnering with Other Entities

Once a municipality has examined its own internal expertise, capacity, and grant funding needs and has sought engagement, the municipality may then be able to reach out to other potential partners to serve as co-recipients or subrecipients or to provide technical assistance. This external relationship building could be accomplished by examining previous grant partnerships or engagements, or it could look to organizations that have similar goals. There is considerable grant management experience in the private sector, as well as in entities such as regional planning or transportation organizations. Even larger cities or state agencies could be potential partners for grant management. Identifying these potential partners prior to seeking funding is critical, because the grant application and budget will need to reflect the work that these partners will do to administer the program. In the case where an award has already been made and a partner is being brought in for administration (or a subrecipient is being contemplated), a revision to the award may need to be negotiated with the funding entity. For federal awards, careful consideration of the Uniform Guidance regulations (and any supplemental program-specific rules) related to direct and indirect administrative costs is critical when creating a program budget that includes support for grant administration.

Acquiring New Support

Many municipalities face unprecedented funding opportunities, including the CARES Act, American Rescue Plan Act (“ARP”) and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (“IIJA”), so it may be necessary to acquire additional capacity to support grant management activities. This can be accomplished by including management costs in a proposed budget for a grant application and then contracting for services once the grant is awarded. However, this approach fails to provide the municipality with support for development of a holistic grant management program and development of a robust compliance infrastructure. In addition, the municipality would be without the services of that contractor for the application and contracting phases of that grant. Through the ARP’s Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (“CSLFRF”), municipalities can access funding to enhance public sector capacity, including hiring internal grants management staff and/or contracting for consulting support for grants management. There are several CSLFRF eligibilities that would permit these expenditures, depending on the exact nature of the scope of the work being performed. While CSLFRF funds are temporary, using these funds in this way would allow municipalities to build significant capacity for grants management that could persist well beyond the CSLFRF period of performance.

Last Updated: July 7, 2022