Memorandum

City of Lawrence

City Manager’s Office

 

TO:

Dave Corliss, Interim City Manager

 

FROM:

Jonathan Douglass, Management Analyst

 

CC:

Debbie Van Saun, Assistant City Manager

Casey Liebst, Budget Manager

Ed Mullins, Finance Director

 

Date:

June 5, 2006

 

RE:

Grant activities

 

 

 

During the April 6, 2006, study session regarding the 2007 Budget, the City Commission asked staff to prepare a report on how much time City departments are spending applying for and administering grants.  Administration of grants includes such activities as submitting progress reports and final reports, tracking budgets and invoices, contract management, and submitting compliance paperwork.

 

Staff time spent on grant activities

 

City departments report spending approximately the following amounts of time applying for and administering grants:

 

Administrative Services

260 hours per year1

City Manager’s Office

50 hours per year

Fire and Medical

60-100 hours per year

Human Relations

80-160 hours per year2

Neighborhood Resources

240 hours per year3

Parks and Recreation

20 hours per year

Planning

800 hours per year

Police

200 hours per year

Public Works

1000 hours per year

Transit System

Majority of staff’s time4

Utilities

80 hours per year

 

1The Personnel Division of Administrative Services assists with the preparation of some Equal Employment Opportunity compliance paperwork.  The 260 hours reported here is the amount of time Personnel spent on the COPS Student Resource Officer grant.

 

2The 80-160 annual hours represents time spent on HUD Partnership Initiative (PI) grants.  PI grants are applied for by Human Relations and by other agencies via Human Relations.  Additionally, Human Relations has a contract agreement with HUD to operate the Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP).  While not technically a grant, approximately half of Human Relations staff time is spent on this federally funded program.      

 

3Neighborhood Resources reports that 240 hours are spent on actual paperwork, not including monitoring, finance, program delivery, etc.  Nearly all of the activities of the Community Development Division are related to the administration of grants. 

 

4The majority of the federal grant funding the Transit System receives is formula funding through the Federal Transit Administration.  Funding levels are dictated by the federal transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU.  Administration of grant programs and compliance with federal requirements takes up the majority of Transit’s staff time. 

 

Results of grant activities

 

As shown in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports for 2004 and 2005, we spent, respectively, $5,019,331 and $4,893,976 of federal grant funds (most of that difference was two police grants that ended during 2005 – COPS and the Traffic Safety grant). 

 

eCivis and other search services

 

Since January 1, 2005, sixteen employees from nine departments (Police, Public Works, Utilities, Human Relations, Finance, Parks & Recreation, Legal Services, Neighborhood Resources, and the City Manager’s Office) have used eCivis to view information on 670 grants.  At this time most departments are aware of the grants that are available to them and are not finding new ones using eCivis.  Both Neighborhood Resources and the Police Department pass along email notifications received from eCivis to other organizations in the community.  The Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority reports that eCivis is the primary grant finder they use.  

 

A quick survey of area cities found that there are others also using eCivis.  The Unified Government has been using a different service from a company called Randall Development.  They report that while the service did help them find some new grants in the first couple of years, the number of new grants has since slowed.  A few cities also use the search feature and electronic distribution list available at http://www.grants.gov/. 

 

Opportunities for Improvement

 

A number of departments, including Parks & Recreation and Planning, indicate that devoting more time to grant activities could possibly result in more grants being awarded to the City.  The Transit System reports that more staff time could help with efforts to advocate for changes to the State transit funding formula, and also allow us to build better relationships with the City’s congressional delegation.    

 

A multi-year capital improvement budget would assist Public Works in obtaining KDOT grants.  With competitive grants, KDOT requires the City to submit five-year plans.  A multi-year (at least three-year) capital improvement budget would allow the City to streamline our KDOT grant application process by demonstrating commitments to matching funds and showing that public process requirements have already been fulfilled. 

 

Personnel Manager Lori Carnahan expressed concern about our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) compliance relating to federal grant application and administration.  Many federal grants require an analysis of the City’s workforce compared to the community’s demographics.  This analysis should identify areas of underutilization, set forth a plan for addressing those areas, and provide a follow-up report regarding the effectiveness of the plan.  This type of analysis, which is more of an affirmative action program than a traditional EEO compliance program, was performed for the COPS Student Resource Officer grant and took approximately 260 hours of Personnel staff time.  Ideally, the City would perform such an analysis annually, which could be used for any federal grant applications that year.  Failing to do so, especially if the City significantly increases its grant seeking activities, puts us at risk of violating Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rules.