CHARLESTON, W.Va. –
The West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (WVDHSEM) hosted more than 60 students from around West Virginia for a Fundamentals of Grants Management (FGM) course, led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), at the West Virginia State Police Academy Professional Development Center in Dunbar, West Virginia, June 25-27, 2019.
The FGM course, designated as L705, is for recipients and subrecipients currently receiving FEMA federal financial assistance via award or grant programs. The course, part of the Grants Management Technical Assistance (GMTA) Program, is designed to enhance recipient's and subrecipient’s ability to administer and manage federal financial assistance.
The course covers high-level grant management principles to include the entire lifecycle of grants from initial appropriations, pre-award, award, execution, and final close-outs. Students apply proven business practices related to the grant lifecycle to increase efficiency and meet grant management priorities such as strategic planning, organization, program implementation, staff training, monitoring, reporting, and audits.
As processes may differ from program to program, students learn to examine the Notice of Funding Opportunity/Program Guidance for each grant program for grant-specific details.
The course is offered quarterly at the Emergency Management Institute (EMI) in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and around the nation as requested. This is the first such class in West Virginia.
“The various FEMA and legislative audits conducted over the past year have identified a lack of sufficient training in grants management for DHSEM staff as well as with other state agencies,” stated Mike Todorovich, Director of WVDHSEM. “By bringing this class directly to West Virginia, we are able to dramatically increase the class size to accommodate folks from county governments, state agencies, and non-profit non-governmental organizations. The training will help us and our partners better understand the intricacies and processes involved in properly executing federal grant funding opportunities.”
“We are excited to train our people to do the things they need to do, to fully identify applicable regulations and to navigate and apply the Code of Federal Regulations, in order to bring additional investment and recovery funding to West Virginia,” Todorovich added.
Upon course completion, students will be able to help their agencies or organizations to develop or revise policies, procedures and practices in critical areas of grants management such as monitoring, procurement, source documentation, payments, and equipment inventory for their individual state agencies or partner organizations, and to prepare for federal monitoring.
“This class will really help the staff of multiple state agencies to become better grant managers, allowing the state to use federal grant dollars to build more capability in the state, and will help us to be more efficient and effective with our own West Virginia tax dollars,” said David Hoge, Deputy Director, Preparedness Grants with the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety (WVDMAPS). “This FGM class will help our agencies get much better at what we do, which will in turn help the people of West Virginia.”
According to Cotilda Harvey, Program Manager for the Grants Management Technical Assistance Program with FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C., the FGM course is a critical link in educating state and local agencies and organizations on how to properly access and maximize federal funding opportunities.
“The three-day agenda covers a lot of information to include the all the phases of the grant management life cycle,” she said. “We (FEMA) bring subject matter experts from both our regional and headquarters staff who help recipients and subrecipients navigate through financial, legal, and other issues such as historic preservation regulations which can impact grant proposals and award execution. The course, provided for free to the state, has proven itself time and again across the nation through less monitoring and audit issues of grant awards, and an overall reduction in ineligible costs that recipients would often include in proposals. This is a great positive step forward for West Virginia!”
WVDHSEM plans to hold another FGM course later this year or in 2020.