WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:16.880 --> 00:00:21.189 Institute of Museum and Library Services 2020 Grants to States All States Conference May 2 00:00:21.189 --> 00:00:23.960 12, 2020 Virtual Proceedings by: CASET Associates, Ltd. caset@caset.net 3 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:29.720 P R O C E E D I N G S (1:00 p.m.) Agenda Item: Welcome and IMLS Updates: COVID-19 4 00:00:29.720 --> 00:00:32.079 and the CARES Act MS. DEVOE: Welcome, everybody. This is Teri, 5 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:39.480 from IMLS, and Grants to States specifically. We are so glad you're here, and we're keeping 6 00:00:39.480 --> 00:00:44.649 the chat box open a few minutes. If you're just arriving, tell us who you are, where 7 00:00:44.649 --> 00:00:50.580 you're from, and maybe something about your favorite superhero. We are going to have a 8 00:00:50.580 --> 00:00:54.910 superhero theme this conference. We're going to do just a few housekeeping 9 00:00:54.910 --> 00:01:02.030 announcements and then we'll dive right into our topic of the hour, because we may well 10 00:01:02.030 --> 00:01:07.130 take the full hour. Just a few announcements. We do have all the 11 00:01:07.130 --> 00:01:12.360 attendees' microphones muted during the virtual conference, so you'll only be hearing from 12 00:01:12.360 --> 00:01:21.350 the presenters. We will have these chat sessions open where you can see each other's comments. 13 00:01:21.350 --> 00:01:25.649 It's open right now, and we're going to have them open during the breaks. But then they're 14 00:01:25.649 --> 00:01:32.359 going to change to just the Q&A box, which will allow you to submit questions to us, 15 00:01:32.359 --> 00:01:36.569 and we'll see them on the presentation side, but you won't see each other's comments. So 16 00:01:36.569 --> 00:01:41.740 that will function just a little bit differently once we get started with just the Q&A. 17 00:01:41.740 --> 00:01:46.790 We're typically going to take questions at the end of the session. That doesn't mean 18 00:01:46.790 --> 00:01:52.920 you can't type in questions throughout a session. Type in any questions as you have them. It's 19 00:01:52.920 --> 00:01:59.959 just that we'll pool them and answer them in one block towards the end. If you're having 20 00:01:59.959 --> 00:02:05.950 any technical assistance issues, you can also type into that Q&A box. We've got folks standing 21 00:02:05.950 --> 00:02:12.701 by to help you with that. We're going to have some of these sessions using polls, so we 22 00:02:12.701 --> 00:02:18.209 look forward to your participation in those. And all of our sessions are going to be recorded. 23 00:02:18.209 --> 00:02:27.280 So we'll send out details about how to access those once the conference is over. For this 24 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:33.320 presentation, we will actually have a couple of blocks to pause and take questions, because 25 00:02:33.320 --> 00:02:37.570 we've got a couple of chunks of content that we want to go through, and make sure everybody's 26 00:02:37.570 --> 00:02:43.430 clear about that. To welcome you officially, here's the Grants 27 00:02:43.430 --> 00:02:49.550 to States team. We can't be together in person this year, and we're admittedly a little sad 28 00:02:49.550 --> 00:02:56.580 about that, but we're all working from home, and we are so glad that you are being flexible 29 00:02:56.580 --> 00:03:02.760 with us and joining us through this virtual format. From left to right on the slide, it's 30 00:03:02.760 --> 00:03:08.760 myself, Teri, the associate director for Grants to States. We've got Madison Bolls, one of 31 00:03:08.760 --> 00:03:15.460 our program officers; Deirdre Gonsalves, our program specialist; Dennis Nangle, a program 32 00:03:15.460 --> 00:03:21.540 officer who is at this moment on paternity leave. Congrats to Dennis and his new baby 33 00:03:21.540 --> 00:03:27.740 boy. And then we've got Michele, who is our third program officer for the Grants to States 34 00:03:27.740 --> 00:03:34.040 program. And that is our team. We hope you are all safe and well out there, 35 00:03:34.040 --> 00:03:40.730 wherever you're tuning in from, and because of the heroic efforts that you have been through 36 00:03:40.730 --> 00:03:46.590 over these past few months, we have designated our theme for the year as superheroes. We 37 00:03:46.590 --> 00:03:51.200 did a little icebreaker at the beginning around that. You won't hear a whole lot about it 38 00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:58.780 in this particular session, but we will have some superhero themes emerging later on. 39 00:03:58.780 --> 00:04:08.290 This session we are going to sort of do a little bit of IMLS updating because a lot 40 00:04:08.290 --> 00:04:13.819 has happened since we met last year in April, for those of you who were with us in person 41 00:04:13.819 --> 00:04:21.790 in Denver. We're going to talk through some of the COVID-19 response flexibilities that 42 00:04:21.790 --> 00:04:29.090 you have as folks administering grants. And we're going to talk about those new and exciting 43 00:04:29.090 --> 00:04:36.670 CARES Act funds, which is unprecedented in the history of our program. So it's very exciting. 44 00:04:36.670 --> 00:04:42.630 We're all learning and going through this together, so we want to be sure to cover these 45 00:04:42.630 --> 00:04:50.470 important topics right at the outset. Just to give you a recap of the past year, 46 00:04:50.470 --> 00:04:59.050 a lot has happened since April. We got a new deputy director for library services, Cyndee 47 00:04:59.050 --> 00:05:06.520 Landrum, over the summer. Shortly after she arrived, the discretionary program issued 48 00:05:06.520 --> 00:05:12.389 our first Accelerating Promising Practices awards. These are designated for small and 49 00:05:12.389 --> 00:05:17.970 rural libraries, and we know that many of you reach small and rural libraries, but it 50 00:05:17.970 --> 00:05:23.419 was new and exciting for IMLS to do this grant program as a direct grant program through 51 00:05:23.419 --> 00:05:30.020 our discretionary team. And we thank you for all the work that you did to help amplify 52 00:05:30.020 --> 00:05:35.750 and coach small libraries to the finish line, and we saw that those efforts really paid 53 00:05:35.750 --> 00:05:41.730 off, so thank you. In October, we rolled out a whole new system, 54 00:05:41.730 --> 00:05:48.080 our electronic grants management system, and all of you came on board with us for that. 55 00:05:48.080 --> 00:05:55.430 We launched the system, had a rollout, had a webinar, and it has been going really well, 56 00:05:55.430 --> 00:06:01.590 which is thanks to you, learning this system and navigating it with us for the first time. 57 00:06:01.590 --> 00:06:09.930 But in January we got a new director, Crosby Kemper. As many of you know, the IMLS directorship 58 00:06:09.930 --> 00:06:18.610 is a four-year term with, now, a one-year sort of option year, and our director rotates 59 00:06:18.610 --> 00:06:24.860 back and forth between libraries and museums. So Crosby comes to us from Kansas City Public 60 00:06:24.860 --> 00:06:32.020 Library, and represents the library side of the house for the next four years. He of course 61 00:06:32.020 --> 00:06:36.850 represents museums, too, and he's learning and has been thrust into really exciting stuff, 62 00:06:36.850 --> 00:06:43.699 ever since January, as you can imagine. Also in January, we issued our first Grants 63 00:06:43.699 --> 00:06:52.740 to States award, under the new Museum and Library Services Act. This had been an act 64 00:06:52.740 --> 00:06:59.290 and been authorized since the year prior, but it wasn't until this year that we were 65 00:06:59.290 --> 00:07:04.790 able to implement it, because we got a higher program budget, which meant that we could 66 00:07:04.790 --> 00:07:12.240 kick off giving the states a higher base, and we also rolled in for the first time three 67 00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:18.669 freely-associated states into the program. This was Palau and Marshall Islands and Micronesia. 68 00:07:18.669 --> 00:07:24.260 They had been part of our Pacific competitive award program up until this point, but now 69 00:07:24.260 --> 00:07:28.900 for the first time they're getting their own allotment. So it's a really exciting moment 70 00:07:28.900 --> 00:07:35.350 for the program. In February, we were working with our SPR 71 00:07:35.350 --> 00:07:41.220 vendor, and migrated the system to the cloud, which probably affected you very little, but 72 00:07:41.220 --> 00:07:48.650 on the back end it was one of the last remaining systems that we had in a server onsite. So 73 00:07:48.650 --> 00:07:53.540 for the agency it weas a really big milestone, and it went pretty darn seamless. So we're 74 00:07:53.540 --> 00:08:00.949 excited about that. And then we started responding to coronavirus, 75 00:08:00.949 --> 00:08:09.490 and by April of this year, we had sent out to you $30 million in CARES Act funds through 76 00:08:09.490 --> 00:08:13.800 the Grants to States program, and we're going to talk more about that. But it has been quite 77 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:20.910 a year, and you should all be very proud of yourselves. 78 00:08:20.910 --> 00:08:26.400 The one thing we would have touched on probably in more detail if we'd had a traditional conference 79 00:08:26.400 --> 00:08:31.479 and more time, but we just wanted to touch on it here, is that in the space of a year 80 00:08:31.479 --> 00:08:37.709 we've gone from just kind of talking about our eGMS system in the abstract to all of 81 00:08:37.709 --> 00:08:45.079 us fully using it. This is a system where you can manage awards, we can see award details, 82 00:08:45.079 --> 00:08:50.200 you can request payments instead of sending us separate emails, you can see the progress 83 00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:54.800 of those payments. It's a place where you can send official grant communications to 84 00:08:54.800 --> 00:09:01.130 us, and it gets appended to the grant award, and it's there for perpetuity, and it's a 85 00:09:01.130 --> 00:09:07.750 place where you can access reporting schedules, and so much more. We thought it was worth 86 00:09:07.750 --> 00:09:16.450 revisiting one guidance area that is pretty specific to Grants to States and eGMS. 87 00:09:16.450 --> 00:09:23.000 Basically, when do you use eGMS to communicate with us, and when is it better to just use 88 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:29.010 something like email? For us, as we think about eGMS, it's really the record level activity 89 00:09:29.010 --> 00:09:34.350 for the program. It's the kind of thing that we used to print out on paper and put in our 90 00:09:34.350 --> 00:09:41.790 paper files. For us, that is things like equipment requests, when you come to us for prior approval, 91 00:09:41.790 --> 00:09:48.010 when you want to buy something for over $5,000 for one single item. It's when you submit 92 00:09:48.010 --> 00:09:54.610 your certifications for the year, when you submit to us a maintenance of effort waiver 93 00:09:54.610 --> 00:10:00.780 request. As I said on the last slide, eGMS is now where you make your payment requests. 94 00:10:00.780 --> 00:10:06.230 If you have any other official requests that require IMLS approval, we want you to be using 95 00:10:06.230 --> 00:10:12.560 eGMS Reach. It's not the end of the world if you don't. We can always append our email 96 00:10:12.560 --> 00:10:18.750 chain of conversation with you to eGMS on our side, but it's just kind of a helpful 97 00:10:18.750 --> 00:10:23.210 concept to think about, that this is a record-level correspondence. 98 00:10:23.210 --> 00:10:28.270 Email is perfectly fine for a lot of other things. If you have allowable costs questions 99 00:10:28.270 --> 00:10:33.000 that you want to bounce off of us, we're happy to answer those through email. If you're having 100 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:40.050 SPR issues or want to send us general feedback. If you need to make contact changes to the 101 00:10:40.050 --> 00:10:46.209 personnel that we send messages to occasionally, there's a designated form for that in the 102 00:10:46.209 --> 00:10:51.600 state program report, so continue to make those changes in the SPR. We don't want you 103 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:57.670 to have to redundantly make those changes in eGMS and SPR. So just make them in the 104 00:10:57.670 --> 00:11:04.070 SPR, and then notify us through email, because unfortunately we don't get push notifications 105 00:11:04.070 --> 00:11:09.940 that those changes have happened. We still have a designated email box for quarterly 106 00:11:09.940 --> 00:11:17.800 grant accrual reports, and that's here on the slide, the LSTA-QRTA email address. And 107 00:11:17.800 --> 00:11:24.110 we still want your Grants to States report to go through the SPR. There is a module in 108 00:11:24.110 --> 00:11:29.650 eGMS for reports, and we know that it can be confusing, but for us, we want you to submit 109 00:11:29.650 --> 00:11:35.670 through the SPR only, and then we do a little back-end work to reflect things in eGMS for 110 00:11:35.670 --> 00:11:41.160 you. For your purposes, reports still go through the SPR. So we thought this slide might help 111 00:11:41.160 --> 00:11:50.000 clear up when to use eGMS and when to just use other channels. 112 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.680 Now we're going to get into the first major topic that we want to cover here, and once 113 00:11:54.680 --> 00:12:01.220 we're done with this topic we'll pause for questions. COVID-19 has had an understandable 114 00:12:01.220 --> 00:12:08.619 impact on how we all do business. It's affecting our conference right now. It has also affected 115 00:12:08.619 --> 00:12:15.670 how you all carry out existing grant awards. So we are going to revisit some of the flexibilities 116 00:12:15.670 --> 00:12:23.570 that are available to you as passthrough organizations. You have a very specific type of grant that 117 00:12:23.570 --> 00:12:29.510 is different from a lot of other IMLS grants. So we just want to differentiate what IMLS 118 00:12:29.510 --> 00:12:35.120 as an agency is telling grantees and what you need to pay attention to as Grants to 119 00:12:35.120 --> 00:12:41.680 States grantees. A lot of this is going to recap some of the 120 00:12:41.680 --> 00:12:50.279 information we've already sent you. Most specifically, probably most pertinently, the early April 121 00:12:50.279 --> 00:12:56.750 message that came from me called "COVID-19 guidance for your open Grants to States awards". 122 00:12:56.750 --> 00:13:04.190 That is the specific Grants to States lens on all of the COVID-19 flexibility stuff. 123 00:13:04.190 --> 00:13:09.870 If, for some reason, you did not get this message, it would have gone to your chief 124 00:13:09.870 --> 00:13:17.100 officer, your LSTA coordinator, and your designated library development contact. Those may not 125 00:13:17.100 --> 00:13:23.970 be job roles at your agency, but they are job categories that we have defined at IMLS. 126 00:13:23.970 --> 00:13:29.899 So ask one of those folks if they can forward the message to you or connect with your program 127 00:13:29.899 --> 00:13:33.360 officer, and we can make sure you get a copy of that. 128 00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:40.950 Basically, this message was our interpretation of information that IMLS put on its website. 129 00:13:40.950 --> 00:13:46.120 You are of course welcome to see the information that IMLS put on its website. It's just that 130 00:13:46.120 --> 00:13:53.230 that information is often couched in a discretionary grant lens, so it's not all going to be applicable 131 00:13:53.230 --> 00:13:59.839 to Grants to States, and the website information that we have up for our agency is sort of 132 00:13:59.839 --> 00:14:06.760 another lens. It's an interpretation and our implementation of what we heard from our Office 133 00:14:06.760 --> 00:14:12.579 of Management and Budget, which sent out a memo to all federal grantmaking agencies about 134 00:14:12.579 --> 00:14:18.570 the new flexibilities that they have offered us. And of course, your program officer is 135 00:14:18.570 --> 00:14:26.130 always a resource on these issues. A lot of what we're covering is on a case-by-case basis. 136 00:14:26.130 --> 00:14:30.690 We hesitate to make blanket statements about what you can and cannot do, because there 137 00:14:30.690 --> 00:14:36.150 are often so many nuances to how you're carrying out your programs. So we encourage you at 138 00:14:36.150 --> 00:14:42.130 the end of the day, if you have questions, just to come to us and we will try to get 139 00:14:42.130 --> 00:14:47.110 them clarified. The scope of what we're talking about here 140 00:14:47.110 --> 00:14:55.100 are your two open awards that were happening as of late March, because that's when we got 141 00:14:55.100 --> 00:15:01.839 the guidance from OMB. So this is open awards for fiscal 2019. That's the grant that's coming 142 00:15:01.839 --> 00:15:08.470 up with an end date of this September, and then your fiscal 2020 award, which will end 143 00:15:08.470 --> 00:15:12.850 next September. So a reminder that anything on our website 144 00:15:12.850 --> 00:15:20.620 around COVID-19, and there is a whole FAQ page on this, is targeted to IMLS discretionary 145 00:15:20.620 --> 00:15:26.450 awards. So where on the website it's going to talk quite a bit about no cost extensions, 146 00:15:26.450 --> 00:15:32.450 because that's a very common thing for discretionary grants. Extensions, we want you to know, are 147 00:15:32.450 --> 00:15:39.730 quite rare for Grants to States. You get awards every single year, and you have overlapping 148 00:15:39.730 --> 00:15:45.600 and parallel awards to keep track of, so as much as possible we're trying to have you 149 00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:52.519 use the flexibility within those multiple awards that you have, rather than asking for 150 00:15:52.519 --> 00:15:58.770 an extension, which starts to throw off the whole cycle. They are possible, and we'll 151 00:15:58.770 --> 00:16:03.900 talk about that a little bit at the end. The other thing on the website is that you're 152 00:16:03.900 --> 00:16:10.160 going to see some references to things like approval requests and asking your program 153 00:16:10.160 --> 00:16:17.970 officer for approval. The flip side of the extension coin is that you actually have a 154 00:16:17.970 --> 00:16:24.529 lot of flexibility when it comes to doing things without IMLS approval, with the Grants 155 00:16:24.529 --> 00:16:30.570 to States program. So that is a plus. There are a few exceptions. We have some new 156 00:16:30.570 --> 00:16:34.410 flexibilities in particular, and we're going to cover those on later slides, but we've 157 00:16:34.410 --> 00:16:42.100 already approved your five-year plan, so that is the stamp of approval for the 2018 to 2022 158 00:16:42.100 --> 00:16:48.250 cycle, for you to make the kinds of adjustments that you need to make at your own discretion. 159 00:16:48.250 --> 00:16:55.650 The other thing the website will talk about, if you look at the COVID-19 FAQs, are change 160 00:16:55.650 --> 00:17:02.589 requests in eGMS. And we are not using, in the Grants to States program, eGMS change 161 00:17:02.589 --> 00:17:08.990 requests so that you would need to initiate one of those to ask for this kind of flexibility. 162 00:17:08.990 --> 00:17:14.909 Instead, we will document some things on the back end, and we just want you to know that 163 00:17:14.909 --> 00:17:24.160 that's not a mechanism that you need to use. First, let's talk about that existing flexibility 164 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:32.679 that you already have in Grants to States. We have some kind of broad guidelines within 165 00:17:32.679 --> 00:17:38.980 which you are operating, and as long as you're adhering to those, you can consider making 166 00:17:38.980 --> 00:17:46.630 changes on your own. Those broad principles come from the Grants to States statute, so 167 00:17:46.630 --> 00:17:55.510 those are some of the certifications and assurances that you have signed off on. Your five-year 168 00:17:55.510 --> 00:18:02.530 plan that IMLS has approved is another kind of broad umbrella under which you're operating, 169 00:18:02.530 --> 00:18:10.570 and you need to be adhering to allowable costs, which, for us, include a lot of things. You 170 00:18:10.570 --> 00:18:17.120 can pay for salaries, you can pay for services, you can pay for programs. We don't want you 171 00:18:17.120 --> 00:18:25.230 to pay for things like advocacy or entertainment. So there's a few unallowable costs, and as 172 00:18:25.230 --> 00:18:33.040 long as you're steering clear of those, you can make some of these decisions on your own. 173 00:18:33.040 --> 00:18:38.790 We know with COVID-19 we've heard a lot about folks having to make alternate plans for in-person 174 00:18:38.790 --> 00:18:46.170 events, so that's fine. If you need to pivot from, much like we did for this conference, 175 00:18:46.170 --> 00:18:51.809 an in-person event where people would travel and be together in a space, that's not healthy 176 00:18:51.809 --> 00:18:57.010 at this time that we're in, and you need to make that a virtual event, that is perfectly 177 00:18:57.010 --> 00:19:03.040 acceptable for you to make that decision and go forth and do it. You can also make in-scope 178 00:19:03.040 --> 00:19:08.720 changes at the state or subrecipients level, and for us in scope, again, kind of points 179 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:13.679 back to your five-year plan. Are you still adhering to the goals that you told that you 180 00:19:13.679 --> 00:19:20.919 were going to tackle for this five-year period? If so, then you're probably working within 181 00:19:20.919 --> 00:19:29.370 a scope where you don't need to ask our permission to do different things. 182 00:19:29.370 --> 00:19:36.980 We do have some new flexibility. This is from our Office of Management and Budget. It applies 183 00:19:36.980 --> 00:19:47.240 to multiple grant agencies across the federal government. If you have these kinds of needs, 184 00:19:47.240 --> 00:19:52.630 we would just ask that you reach out to us for prior approval, because they are exceptions 185 00:19:52.630 --> 00:19:59.200 to a lot of what we've talked about so far. One of the areas we realize may need to be 186 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:04.570 charged to a grant is if you've done everything you can possibly do to pivot away from an 187 00:20:04.570 --> 00:20:10.090 in-person meeting, but you've still got some unrecoverable costs. That is one of the areas 188 00:20:10.090 --> 00:20:16.070 that you can write to us and ask for that to be charged to the grant, and we just need 189 00:20:16.070 --> 00:20:23.340 to document that on our end. The second area is around salaries and benefits 190 00:20:23.340 --> 00:20:29.630 that would be charged under unexpected or extraordinary circumstances. These need to 191 00:20:29.630 --> 00:20:35.070 be, if they're going to be charged to the grant, consistent with the institution's own 192 00:20:35.070 --> 00:20:42.210 policy of paying salaries, so if an institution is not paying folks salaries whose work has 193 00:20:42.210 --> 00:20:47.600 been disrupted by COVID-19, but you want to come and ask the salaries to be charged to 194 00:20:47.600 --> 00:20:52.650 a grant, then that would not be an acceptable approval that we could make. It has to be 195 00:20:52.650 --> 00:20:58.860 consistent with the institution's own policies. And these don't necessarily have to be formal 196 00:20:58.860 --> 00:21:05.010 and codified and in writing in a very formal way, but as long as there is some semblance 197 00:21:05.010 --> 00:21:10.700 of a policy -- we realize a lot of this stuff was happening quickly at the local and the 198 00:21:10.700 --> 00:21:15.669 regional and state levels, and so some of these things just may be written down in an 199 00:21:15.669 --> 00:21:21.720 email, for example, but if you give us a semblance that there's a policy there, then we can approve 200 00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:28.960 also charging things like that to the grant. So with these types of questions, we want 201 00:21:28.960 --> 00:21:33.760 you to reach out to your program officer and they'll tell you the specific things that 202 00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:38.890 we need to know. Basically, it's things like the estimated dollar amount that you'll be 203 00:21:38.890 --> 00:21:45.580 charging to the award, which grant year this is going to apply to, and then if you're charging 204 00:21:45.580 --> 00:21:51.340 salaries and benefits, whether it's consistent with the institution's policy. 205 00:21:51.340 --> 00:21:57.220 The OMB has given us, for now, and this may change, but for now we know that we have these 206 00:21:57.220 --> 00:22:05.860 flexibilities for 90 days. The memo was issued March 19, so that gives us through mid-June 207 00:22:05.860 --> 00:22:12.510 to be able to approve these new types of charges to grant awards. 208 00:22:12.510 --> 00:22:19.890 So, if you find yourself in the situation where you think you might have some of these 209 00:22:19.890 --> 00:22:25.220 costs that need to be approved by IMLS before you can move forward and charge them to the 210 00:22:25.220 --> 00:22:31.480 grant, what we're asking is that you do this as soon as you can and reach out to us so 211 00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:36.500 that we don't find ourselves in a position at the end of June saying, oh, I'm sorry, 212 00:22:36.500 --> 00:22:42.960 you came to us too late, and we can no longer give you approval for these kinds of flexibilities. 213 00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:50.220 So we've got through June 17 at the moment, and if this changes, we will let you know. 214 00:22:50.220 --> 00:22:56.289 But for now, maybe check with your subrecipients, do a little due diligence, so that we can 215 00:22:56.289 --> 00:23:04.530 smooth this transition and give you the approval you need to charge things to the grant award. 216 00:23:04.530 --> 00:23:14.660 On the COVID-19, just to wrap up, I have communicated on the one hand that you have a lot of discretion 217 00:23:14.660 --> 00:23:20.270 to make your own decisions. That's not to say that we don't want to hear from you. We're 218 00:23:20.270 --> 00:23:24.860 always happy to hear your questions and help you think through options. It's just that 219 00:23:24.860 --> 00:23:30.470 we want to empower you to know that your program works a little bit different than IMLS programs 220 00:23:30.470 --> 00:23:37.361 in general, and you do have some decision-making discretion. Most of the scenarios that are 221 00:23:37.361 --> 00:23:46.100 happening out in the field have a lot of case-by-case aspects to them, so we have not gone here 222 00:23:46.100 --> 00:23:51.610 into making blanket statements about what is and isn't allowable, but we're happy to, 223 00:23:51.610 --> 00:23:57.179 again, talk through options with you and help you figure out what might be the best course 224 00:23:57.179 --> 00:24:02.919 of action. Then, on the extensions front, if you are 225 00:24:02.919 --> 00:24:08.630 doing everything you can do in this fiscal 2019 grant period in particular, and this 226 00:24:08.630 --> 00:24:16.100 ends the end of September this year, if you've moved money around, if you've thought about 227 00:24:16.100 --> 00:24:21.180 different projects, and you're still finding that you cannot complete your activities by 228 00:24:21.180 --> 00:24:28.620 September 30 of this year, please reach out to us before September so that we can formalize 229 00:24:28.620 --> 00:24:34.100 -- we can consider and we can give you approval as needed for an extension to the Grants to 230 00:24:34.100 --> 00:24:40.760 States program. It's rare, but it is possible, and we just ask that you would do that early 231 00:24:40.760 --> 00:24:46.310 enough so that we can weigh everything and give you a good answer. 232 00:24:46.310 --> 00:24:54.210 With that, I want to pause and see if there are any questions on anything we've covered 233 00:24:54.210 --> 00:25:00.549 to date, before we jump into the CARES Act portion. I see we have a few questions, and 234 00:25:00.549 --> 00:25:05.039 I'm going to turn it to Deirdre to help me moderate this section. 235 00:25:05.039 --> 00:25:11.990 MS. GONSALVES: Absolutely, thank you. So we do have a question about the salaries. With 236 00:25:11.990 --> 00:25:17.210 covering the salaries specifically for SLAA staff only. 237 00:25:17.210 --> 00:25:27.010 MS. DEVOE: OMB did not differentiate between SLAA staff or any other kind of staff, so 238 00:25:27.010 --> 00:25:33.789 if you have subrecipient staff that need to invoke this flexibility, we can consider that. 239 00:25:33.789 --> 00:25:42.230 It's not restricted to just one type of staff. MS. GONSALVES: Okay, our next question. Regarding 240 00:25:42.230 --> 00:25:51.880 the policy on salaries, is this a long-term or a longstanding policy to be put in place, 241 00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:58.660 or is this just short term for this circumstance? MS. DEVOE: If I am understanding this right, 242 00:25:58.660 --> 00:26:06.490 the charging salaries to the award under extraordinary circumstances, that language that I put up 243 00:26:06.490 --> 00:26:12.780 on earlier slides, that is a very temporary flexibility that the Office of Management 244 00:26:12.780 --> 00:26:20.140 and Budget has given us for 90 days. If folks are unable to perform their duties because 245 00:26:20.140 --> 00:26:26.990 of COVID-19, that is what it is supposed to be responding to. It's a temporary situation 246 00:26:26.990 --> 00:26:31.490 that we're in, theoretically. If we hear it's going to be extended, we'll let you know. 247 00:26:31.490 --> 00:26:42.039 But for now, that's a 90-day flexibility. It's not something that we'll have forever 248 00:26:42.039 --> 00:26:44.820 and always. MS. GONSALVES: I am going to read this next 249 00:26:44.820 --> 00:26:49.850 question. We have someone who wants to know if you can elaborate about the grant-funded 250 00:26:49.850 --> 00:26:55.870 meetings specifically, can grantees get reimbursed for costs associated with sending staff to 251 00:26:55.870 --> 00:27:00.600 conferences, which are normally charged to the grant, or is this just for meetings that 252 00:27:00.600 --> 00:27:09.669 grantees hold for themselves or are hosting, and if it's the former, would a request for 253 00:27:09.669 --> 00:27:14.340 approval need to be submitted to the program officer with the specifics for the conference? 254 00:27:14.340 --> 00:27:21.811 MS. DEVOE: There is existing flexibility in the program. I hope I am answering this question 255 00:27:21.811 --> 00:27:29.980 correctly. You can always get reimbursed for sending staff to conferences and for meetings 256 00:27:29.980 --> 00:27:35.330 that you're hosting. Right now what's happening is COVID-19 is throwing a monkey wrench into 257 00:27:35.330 --> 00:27:42.890 a lot of these plans. So OMB has given us new flexibility allowing us to charge atypical 258 00:27:42.890 --> 00:27:49.200 costs, like sunk cost for conferences, to grant awards, for the first time, knowing 259 00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:55.010 that COVID-19 is new and different. If I'm answering your question, hopefully, you can 260 00:27:55.010 --> 00:28:01.510 charge -- those costs could be both for travelers traveling to conferences, or for meetings 261 00:28:01.510 --> 00:28:07.169 that you're hosting yourselves, or for meetings that some of your subrecipients are hosting. 262 00:28:07.169 --> 00:28:14.600 Basically, the whole gamut of conference-related costs that might be sunk costs. 263 00:28:14.600 --> 00:28:20.330 And then, if the former, would we need to submit a request for approval? Yeah, if these 264 00:28:20.330 --> 00:28:28.581 are of the sunk cost variety, it's not normally something we'd be able to give you as an allowable 265 00:28:28.581 --> 00:28:34.610 cost, we do want to hear from you and give you prior approval before you make those charges. 266 00:28:34.610 --> 00:28:40.289 We need to document that in writing, because with this flexibility that OMB is giving us, 267 00:28:40.289 --> 00:28:44.340 they're going to want a report from us as to how many of our grantees took advantage 268 00:28:44.340 --> 00:28:51.080 of these flexibilities, and so we're documenting them on the back end. So we do in these cases 269 00:28:51.080 --> 00:28:56.020 want you to come to us for prior approval. I hope that answers the question. 270 00:28:56.020 --> 00:29:04.950 MS. GONSALVES: Someone wants to know if a library is currently furloughing staff, if 271 00:29:04.950 --> 00:29:11.270 salaries can be charged to the grant. MS. DEVOE: This is probably one of those case-by-case 272 00:29:11.270 --> 00:29:20.510 basis things, but I'll speak in broad brushstrokes. If the library has an existing grant award, 273 00:29:20.510 --> 00:29:28.380 and they had existing grant funds paying for salaries, and because they're now being furloughed 274 00:29:28.380 --> 00:29:34.551 they're unable to carry out the grant-making activities as originally outlined, then you 275 00:29:34.551 --> 00:29:40.130 could come to us and ask for some of these flexibilities around charging those salaries 276 00:29:40.130 --> 00:29:47.210 to the award, as long as that same institution would do the same kind of thing if they were 277 00:29:47.210 --> 00:29:51.490 not paying for salaries on grant funds. If they were paying for those salaries on their 278 00:29:51.490 --> 00:29:59.779 own institution funds. So there's a couple of flavors of that. But come to us with anything 279 00:29:59.779 --> 00:30:10.400 like that, and if we don't have enough information right off the bat from you, we'll ask a few 280 00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:18.640 more questions. MS. GONSALVES: Another salary question. Is 281 00:30:18.640 --> 00:30:22.200 flexibility regarding salaries not previously covered by the grant? 282 00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:32.419 MS. DEVOE: This exact type of flexibility, which is very much related to COVID-19 response, 283 00:30:32.419 --> 00:30:39.650 has not been covered by the grant in the past. And because OMB only issued its memo as of 284 00:30:39.650 --> 00:30:49.580 March 19, we would only be able to grant retroactive prior approval back to March 19, because that's 285 00:30:49.580 --> 00:30:59.120 the first day that we had the flexibility to make those requests. So yes, it has not 286 00:30:59.120 --> 00:31:05.080 been previously covered by the grants. COVID-19 has kicked off a new wave of flexibilities 287 00:31:05.080 --> 00:31:11.960 for us. MS. GONSALVES: Okay. A different type of question 288 00:31:11.960 --> 00:31:18.590 regarding extensions. If a grantee is granted an extension, is there a usual set amount 289 00:31:18.590 --> 00:31:25.120 of time for the extension? MS. DEVOE: That's a great question. This has 290 00:31:25.120 --> 00:31:32.490 to be determined by you as the SLAA. So there's no set time period that we recommend. We want 291 00:31:32.490 --> 00:31:38.890 you to be able to finish all of the activities that you have outlined for that grant year, 292 00:31:38.890 --> 00:31:43.630 so if you think that's going to take an extra month, you can ask for a month extension. 293 00:31:43.630 --> 00:31:47.409 If you think that's going to take an extra three months, you can ask for a three-month 294 00:31:47.409 --> 00:31:53.270 extension. However long you think you're going to need, we want you to determine that time 295 00:31:53.270 --> 00:32:00.049 period and to come to us with that time period in your request. And remember that whatever 296 00:32:00.049 --> 00:32:05.980 extension amount you ask for will then kick off an additional sort of reporting extension, 297 00:32:05.980 --> 00:32:12.200 because you get three months after the end period of performance to submit your reports. 298 00:32:12.200 --> 00:32:18.390 So you tell us what you think you need, and we will consider it based on your information. 299 00:32:18.390 --> 00:32:27.280 MS. GONSALVES: There are currently no additional questions at this time. 300 00:32:27.280 --> 00:32:33.760 MS. DEVOE: That is great. Thank you all for those great questions. And if you have more 301 00:32:33.760 --> 00:32:39.440 on COVID, go ahead and continue to ask them, and whatever we don't get to during the presentation, 302 00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:48.850 we will follow up with you afterwards. Now let's move into CARES Act funds. This 303 00:32:48.850 --> 00:32:57.559 is part of one of the waves of stimulus packages that Congress has authorized in response to 304 00:32:57.559 --> 00:33:05.210 COVID-19, and I think it speaks very highly of all your work in the field and your reputation 305 00:33:05.210 --> 00:33:14.120 as good stewards of funds that IMLS was given $50 million to administer as part of this 306 00:33:14.120 --> 00:33:21.770 package. What I will say at the outset, that this slide deck was finalized late last week, 307 00:33:21.770 --> 00:33:28.770 and on that very same day IMLS announced its new discretionary opportunity through the 308 00:33:28.770 --> 00:33:36.740 CARES Act, and I do not have any slides on that, so I'll talk about it just super briefly. 309 00:33:36.740 --> 00:33:42.730 We've got two kind of pools of funds going right now at CARES Act and IMLS. $30 million 310 00:33:42.730 --> 00:33:48.750 was originally granted out to all of you, and I will be talking about that. An additional 311 00:33:48.750 --> 00:33:55.330 $15 million was just announced last Friday in the form discretionary competitive awards. 312 00:33:55.330 --> 00:34:02.570 Those are going to be available to libraries and museums to apply to IMLS directly. The 313 00:34:02.570 --> 00:34:08.879 deadline for that is going to be June 12, so it is a rapid turnaround program, sort 314 00:34:08.879 --> 00:34:15.510 of in keeping with the emergency response nature of the funds. All of you are technically 315 00:34:15.510 --> 00:34:21.129 eligible for these grants, and many of your stakeholders and libraries that you work with 316 00:34:21.129 --> 00:34:27.569 will also be eligible for these grants. There will be a webinar this Thursday at 2 317 00:34:27.569 --> 00:34:34.029 p.m. Eastern time, so if you haven't gotten enough IMLS on Tuesday and Wednesday of this 318 00:34:34.029 --> 00:34:38.849 week for the virtual conference, you can tune in again on Thursday at 2 p.m. Eastern, when 319 00:34:38.849 --> 00:34:45.089 there'll be a webinar specifically around this discretionary pool of funding. The grants 320 00:34:45.089 --> 00:34:53.760 are going to be in the amount of $25,000 up to $500,000. And the broad-brush scope, and 321 00:34:53.760 --> 00:35:00.799 this is where my expertise will stop, but it's broadly around recovery and adaptation. 322 00:35:00.799 --> 00:35:09.290 So again, how have libraries and museums had to adapt based on their response to COVID-19? 323 00:35:09.290 --> 00:35:16.019 So that is what I can tell you about discretionary funds, and just sort of reiterate that everything 324 00:35:16.019 --> 00:35:21.920 I talk to after this point is going to be about the Grants to States portion of the 325 00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:29.660 CARES Act funds, which is the $30 million that went out in April. 326 00:35:29.660 --> 00:35:38.259 We also sent some prior information about this. On April 13, the chief, the LSTA coordinators, 327 00:35:38.259 --> 00:35:43.109 and the library development folks, would have gotten a message from me called "IMLS CARES 328 00:35:43.109 --> 00:35:49.509 Act funds for Grants to States". A lot of that language was reiterated when we sent 329 00:35:49.509 --> 00:35:56.720 out your grant awards the following week. The language is in the award document itself, 330 00:35:56.720 --> 00:36:02.299 your notice of action, as well as in a decision letter that accompanies the awards. 331 00:36:02.299 --> 00:36:08.430 So both of these documents are in eGMS in your documents tab. As long as you are an 332 00:36:08.430 --> 00:36:15.450 authorized user in eGMS and attached to the CARES Act award and your other open awards 333 00:36:15.450 --> 00:36:21.499 with Grants to States, you'll be able to see these. And if you were one of a select group 334 00:36:21.499 --> 00:36:26.640 of contacts, you would have also gotten an email on the day the awards were issued. That 335 00:36:26.640 --> 00:36:34.190 was April 21. In addition to that language that we've sort of got written down, your 336 00:36:34.190 --> 00:36:38.809 program officer, again, is a wonderful resource, and we're happy to talk through any CARES 337 00:36:38.809 --> 00:36:48.319 Act questions you might have. This is a new and different grant, essentially. 338 00:36:48.319 --> 00:36:54.210 We've never in the Grants to States program in my time had a separate grant like this, 339 00:36:54.210 --> 00:36:59.880 but it's new legislation, and therefore, it is a new and different award that is separate 340 00:36:59.880 --> 00:37:05.799 from your fiscal 2020 award although it has the same end date. So it's sort of running 341 00:37:05.799 --> 00:37:12.780 in parallel right now to your fiscal 2020 award, so both end next September. 342 00:37:12.780 --> 00:37:17.739 The CARES Act came with a couple of special provisions. Specifically, and excitingly, 343 00:37:17.739 --> 00:37:25.569 there is no match requirement for CARES Act, so whereas you have to bring a portion of 344 00:37:25.569 --> 00:37:30.930 state and local dollars to your traditional Grants to States awards, these funds come 345 00:37:30.930 --> 00:37:39.489 with no match requirement. They also have a special purpose, we should say, and we've 346 00:37:39.489 --> 00:37:46.609 sort of shorthanded this as the spending priorities. Whereas your normal Grants to States awards 347 00:37:46.609 --> 00:37:53.269 sort of invoke the LSTA purposes and your five-year plan, these funds have a very specific 348 00:37:53.269 --> 00:37:56.749 spending purpose and we'll talk about those in a minute. 349 00:37:56.749 --> 00:38:03.390 But apart from these CARES Act provisions, no match and the purpose, the existing Grants 350 00:38:03.390 --> 00:38:08.640 to States statutory provisions still apply to these CARES Act awards. So the CARES Act 351 00:38:08.640 --> 00:38:15.019 stuff still comes under the banner of your five-year plans. They still need to adhere 352 00:38:15.019 --> 00:38:19.380 to the certifications and assurances that you signed earlier this year, and that includes 353 00:38:19.380 --> 00:38:25.209 things like the Children's Internet Protection Act, and they still follow our traditional 354 00:38:25.209 --> 00:38:31.549 IMLS guidance around things like allowable costs and 4 percent administration, and other 355 00:38:31.549 --> 00:38:37.240 things. So we're going to dive a little deeper into these as the slides go along. 356 00:38:37.240 --> 00:38:44.260 So the purpose. This is the language that was both in the email that I sent you, and 357 00:38:44.260 --> 00:38:49.470 all the award documentation that you've received. You've probably seen it already, but it's 358 00:38:49.470 --> 00:38:57.979 just worth underscoring here. CARES Act is Public Law 116-136, and its purpose is to 359 00:38:57.979 --> 00:39:04.959 prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, including to expand digital network access, 360 00:39:04.959 --> 00:39:10.700 purchase internet-accessible devices, and provide technical support services. For the 361 00:39:10.700 --> 00:39:16.920 Grants to States program we said that primarily we want you to focus on digital inclusion 362 00:39:16.920 --> 00:39:22.380 and related technical support. That is the primary purpose of this funding. 363 00:39:22.380 --> 00:39:30.550 The three bullets in that section are very much data points to help you inform how you 364 00:39:30.550 --> 00:39:38.220 determine the need for this digital inclusion focus. We are not saying that you have to 365 00:39:38.220 --> 00:39:45.249 do anything with the SNAP program or your unemployment offices. Just that these are 366 00:39:45.249 --> 00:39:52.609 data points. There is poverty data out there. SNAP data is a bit more broad. It can help 367 00:39:52.609 --> 00:39:57.911 you inform the needs in your state and point to the areas of greatest need. Same with unemployment 368 00:39:57.911 --> 00:40:03.670 data. This is changing by the day, but there is unemployment data out there, so that when 369 00:40:03.670 --> 00:40:09.099 folks come to you and say how did you determine how you were using your CARES Act funds, you 370 00:40:09.099 --> 00:40:13.400 can say, well, we looked at the poverty data and the unemployment data and the broadband 371 00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:20.229 data. I will say, about this data, it also is being 372 00:40:20.229 --> 00:40:28.019 invoked in the discretionary form of the CARES Act funds that IMLS is administering, and 373 00:40:28.019 --> 00:40:34.059 when we announced the availability of those funds on Friday, our colleagues, Lisa Frehill, 374 00:40:34.059 --> 00:40:39.839 who's going to be speaking to you this afternoon, and Matt Birnbaum, put together what they're 375 00:40:39.839 --> 00:40:47.010 calling an IMLS indicators workbook, and this has some of this type of data in it. We know 376 00:40:47.010 --> 00:40:51.579 that you probably have a lot of this data at your fingertips for your states, but the 377 00:40:51.579 --> 00:40:58.289 workbook that IMLS put together has state and county data in it. It is linked to our 378 00:40:58.289 --> 00:41:04.279 website now, under the data area of our website, and then the data catalogue, and it's basically 379 00:41:04.279 --> 00:41:09.759 an Excel spreadsheet that has Bureau of Labor Statistics data in it, Census data in it, 380 00:41:09.759 --> 00:41:15.609 and broadband data in it. So if you have been puzzling about this data 381 00:41:15.609 --> 00:41:21.109 and would like to access the digest that our colleagues put together, it's there and available 382 00:41:21.109 --> 00:41:26.499 to you, and I believe Matt Birnbaum is going to talk about again tomorrow, with some screenshots 383 00:41:26.499 --> 00:41:32.299 and slides, so that you can see where this is located. But basically, the data, again, 384 00:41:32.299 --> 00:41:40.430 is just a tool to help you make decisions. The funding, again, primarily around digital 385 00:41:40.430 --> 00:41:46.640 inclusion. So that is effort number one. And then secondarily, we want you to address 386 00:41:46.640 --> 00:41:53.859 other efforts that prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus. And the third issue 387 00:41:53.859 --> 00:42:01.369 here is new and exciting for Grants to States. We have asked, to the extent that you can, 388 00:42:01.369 --> 00:42:07.539 to reach out and include museum and tribal partners where appropriate. And the caveat 389 00:42:07.539 --> 00:42:13.890 language there is really where appropriate. We know that not every state allows these 390 00:42:13.890 --> 00:42:19.259 types of institutions to be part of their eligibility, and we still respect that. There 391 00:42:19.259 --> 00:42:29.759 is probably some creative ways that you can partner with them, but again, it's not required. 392 00:42:29.759 --> 00:42:37.220 Because we know that these funds, we're anticipating that they're going to be watched with more 393 00:42:37.220 --> 00:42:43.579 close scrutiny than our usual grant programs, one thing our leadership asked was rather 394 00:42:43.579 --> 00:42:49.249 than wait for Grants to States to do its traditional reporting cycle, which comes after the fact 395 00:42:49.249 --> 00:42:54.219 -- you know, we wouldn't hear from you until December 2021 how you were spending your CARES 396 00:42:54.219 --> 00:43:01.920 Act funds, unless we asked you earlier. So we went a few weeks ago to the chief officers 397 00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:07.690 of all the states and asked if you could give us just a high-level, really preliminary, 398 00:43:07.690 --> 00:43:15.789 overview of how you plan to spend the funds. We wanted to keep that information internal 399 00:43:15.789 --> 00:43:19.710 to IMLS for the most part. We're not going to out any states, because a lot of those 400 00:43:19.710 --> 00:43:26.119 plans are super-preliminary, but what we can do with it is a really quick-and-dirty digest 401 00:43:26.119 --> 00:43:33.640 of the types of things that you're thinking about. Very broadly, this is not even an exhaustive 402 00:43:33.640 --> 00:43:38.819 list of topics, you came up with a lot more exciting things that we could talk about, 403 00:43:38.819 --> 00:43:44.450 but just to see that you were tracking with the language in the CARES Act, we pulled together 404 00:43:44.450 --> 00:43:49.219 this slide. Really the first three areas, connectivity, 405 00:43:49.219 --> 00:43:55.200 digital content, and online reading programs, I think really speak to that digital inclusion 406 00:43:55.200 --> 00:44:01.430 and related technical support focus. So it's really heartening to see how much emphasis 407 00:44:01.430 --> 00:44:09.869 that gets in terms of the count that we did. A lot of you also invoked unemployment-related 408 00:44:09.869 --> 00:44:17.240 needs, specifically around things like databases and training support and having librarians 409 00:44:17.240 --> 00:44:23.549 assist with unemployment-related things. A lot of you talked about COVID response supplies 410 00:44:23.549 --> 00:44:29.390 and things you would need to purchase to help your physical spaces in your libraries reopen 411 00:44:29.390 --> 00:44:37.109 and get back to a new and different way of business. We looked at how many of you had 412 00:44:37.109 --> 00:44:41.860 explicitly mentioned museums, and there were 13 states that had. That doesn't mean that 413 00:44:41.860 --> 00:44:48.289 more of you won't end up working with museums, but just in the very quick count from these 414 00:44:48.289 --> 00:44:55.059 preliminary plans, that's what we saw. And seven of you mentioned tribes explicitly. 415 00:44:55.059 --> 00:45:00.479 The last category here isn't really a topic, but it was interesting as a mechanism to see 416 00:45:00.479 --> 00:45:05.630 that 19 of you were thinking about subawards, and I have seen that some of you have already 417 00:45:05.630 --> 00:45:11.059 deployed these subaward programs and have worked just really rapidly to get this funding 418 00:45:11.059 --> 00:45:15.650 out the door, which is outstanding, and we applaud all the efforts that you're doing 419 00:45:15.650 --> 00:45:24.180 on this front. Of these topical areas, our colleagues suggested 420 00:45:24.180 --> 00:45:29.749 it would be great if you could pull a few examples just so people could see, like connectivity. 421 00:45:29.749 --> 00:45:37.450 For us, encompasses a very large range of things. It's everything from hotspots to devices 422 00:45:37.450 --> 00:45:44.000 with data plans to wifi extenders and repeaters, all the way up to equipment upgrades and so 423 00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:50.539 much more. So if there's anything around internet access, people being able to access the internet, 424 00:45:50.539 --> 00:45:55.719 we included it broadly in this category. Digital content, probably not surprisingly, 425 00:45:55.719 --> 00:46:02.819 centered around ebooks, audiobooks, and databases. We have some examples here of the unemployment-related 426 00:46:02.819 --> 00:46:09.569 things that you're thinking about in advance. The COVID response supplies range from sprays 427 00:46:09.569 --> 00:46:16.579 and wipes to masks and gloves and sneeze guards and keyboard covers. And other materials that 428 00:46:16.579 --> 00:46:22.599 would help libraries do a staged reopening of their physical spaces. 429 00:46:22.599 --> 00:46:28.989 For those of you mentioning museums, we took one example from a state that was thinking 430 00:46:28.989 --> 00:46:34.459 about summer learning and virtual programming where they could partner with museums if possible, 431 00:46:34.459 --> 00:46:41.160 to make those virtual programming opportunities happen. Another state that mentioned tribes 432 00:46:41.160 --> 00:46:46.940 specifically talked about targeting grants to the four tribal college libraries in the 433 00:46:46.940 --> 00:46:53.190 state. And one of the states that was going to pursue a subgrant program outlined grants 434 00:46:53.190 --> 00:46:58.449 of $250 to $1,000, and these would be for public libraries to help address digital inclusion 435 00:46:58.449 --> 00:47:02.190 needs. Again, these are just examples. I would say 436 00:47:02.190 --> 00:47:09.390 our communications manager at IMLS who saw this very initial digest of information was 437 00:47:09.390 --> 00:47:15.829 very excited. She's always looking for stories to showcase, and we know that many of you 438 00:47:15.829 --> 00:47:22.499 are in super preliminary stages of rolling out your CARES Act funds, but if you have 439 00:47:22.499 --> 00:47:29.140 programs or projects that you have already kind of gotten off the ground, even in sort 440 00:47:29.140 --> 00:47:35.760 of a conceptual format, if you want us to potentially showcase those on our website, 441 00:47:35.760 --> 00:47:43.809 she would be interested in reaching out to you. If you are interested, if you are willing, 442 00:47:43.809 --> 00:47:52.580 reach out to me or your program officer. This is Teri, it's tdevoe@imls.gov, and you can 443 00:47:52.580 --> 00:47:58.069 tell me, hey, we'd like to have your communication manager reach out to us and showcase this 444 00:47:58.069 --> 00:48:02.660 great thing we're doing with CARES Act funds. The more of those great stories that we can 445 00:48:02.660 --> 00:48:09.549 start sending out will sort of be a return on investment for those folks that granted 446 00:48:09.549 --> 00:48:15.289 us these funds and trusted us to do great things with them. So we're excited to start 447 00:48:15.289 --> 00:48:19.989 showcasing things. And even if it's just a news release that you've already issued yourself, 448 00:48:19.989 --> 00:48:28.009 send it our way, and we'll amplify those things through social media and find a way to showcase 449 00:48:28.009 --> 00:48:32.609 them. I just wanted to put in a little plug from a communications standpoint. 450 00:48:32.609 --> 00:48:41.709 All right, I just want to quickly revisit this idea that while the CARES Act funds have 451 00:48:41.709 --> 00:48:47.459 their own little special purpose and waived match, if you think about CARES Act and Grants 452 00:48:47.459 --> 00:48:52.920 to States as an overlapping Venn diagram, CARES Act largely comes under the umbrella 453 00:48:52.920 --> 00:48:57.939 of Grants to States, and most of the Grants to States statutory provisions still apply. 454 00:48:57.939 --> 00:49:02.959 So we've still got your five-year plan in play, you want your CARES Act funds to still 455 00:49:02.959 --> 00:49:10.029 reflect that. The LSTA priorities are what the five-year plan reflects, so that's still 456 00:49:10.029 --> 00:49:18.809 in play. If you have SLAA-determined eligibility, that is where we wouldn't force you to make 457 00:49:18.809 --> 00:49:25.479 grants to museums and tribes if they are not part of your existing eligibility requirements. 458 00:49:25.479 --> 00:49:32.469 But maybe think about partnering with them. Four percent administration is an optional 459 00:49:32.469 --> 00:49:38.089 but allowable part of the CARES Act grants, just like they are with Grants to States. 460 00:49:38.089 --> 00:49:43.359 So if you need to reserve a portion of CARES Act so that you can report on them at the 461 00:49:43.359 --> 00:49:49.799 end of the cycle, pay your LSTA coordinator, et cetera, that is still part and parcel of 462 00:49:49.799 --> 00:49:55.471 this grant program. Allowable costs are still in play. So, we 463 00:49:55.471 --> 00:50:02.529 don't want you again to be doing things like throwing entertainment banquets or lobbying 464 00:50:02.529 --> 00:50:07.140 with CARES Act funds. Just as they are not appropriate for Grants to States, they're 465 00:50:07.140 --> 00:50:13.300 not appropriate for CARES Act. And things that you certified and signed off on, like 466 00:50:13.300 --> 00:50:19.000 Children's' Internet Protection Act and non-construction still apply to CARES Act. So I'm going to 467 00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:25.040 give those two topics a little bit of extra time on the next slides. 468 00:50:25.040 --> 00:50:32.920 Essentially, Children's Internet Protection Act continues to apply to the CARES Act because 469 00:50:32.920 --> 00:50:40.970 all of you, as state library administrative agencies, SLAAs, are subject to it. If you're 470 00:50:40.970 --> 00:50:47.579 thinking about giving CARES Act funding or devices to libraries, if they receive E-rate 471 00:50:47.579 --> 00:50:53.579 funds, then they are already subject to CIPA. The ones you need to worry about a little 472 00:50:53.579 --> 00:50:59.489 bit more are the other libraries who don't already receive E-rate funds, and in that 473 00:50:59.489 --> 00:51:05.160 instance, the SLAA needs to ensure that the recipient library or the recipient institution 474 00:51:05.160 --> 00:51:11.799 has an internet safety policy in place for its devices. So we realize there's probably 475 00:51:11.799 --> 00:51:17.099 more nuance to questions around this. Feel free to write to us with those questions, 476 00:51:17.099 --> 00:51:24.559 and we will do our best to answer them. But that's kind of the high-level deal on CIPA. 477 00:51:24.559 --> 00:51:30.920 And then we've got just a word on connectivity and construction. Construction is still unallowable 478 00:51:30.920 --> 00:51:36.049 under the CARES Act. It's unallowable under the Grants to States statutory provisions, 479 00:51:36.049 --> 00:51:40.420 which extend to match funds. We realize CARES Act does not have match funds attached to 480 00:51:40.420 --> 00:51:45.449 it, but we always like to remind folks that we don't want to see construction invoked 481 00:51:45.449 --> 00:51:50.779 in any part of your SPR report, whether it was paid for by federal dollars or state dollars 482 00:51:50.779 --> 00:51:54.809 or local dollars. Just construction should not be reported there. 483 00:51:54.809 --> 00:52:01.099 This includes things like broadband infrastructure projects that would require major construction 484 00:52:01.099 --> 00:52:07.369 equipment or trenching or construction-related trades. There are a number of federal agencies 485 00:52:07.369 --> 00:52:13.739 out in the universe that can fund last-mile projects, but IMLS at this moment is unfortunately 486 00:52:13.739 --> 00:52:20.150 not one of them. So we just encourage you, especially with the digital inclusion focus 487 00:52:20.150 --> 00:52:25.630 of the CARES Act, to proceed with caution with any kind of infrastructure upgrades that 488 00:52:25.630 --> 00:52:35.259 you may be making. They have to adhere to our statute and avoid construction. 489 00:52:35.259 --> 00:52:42.890 I'm going to go through just a visual here to show that you have at any given time overlapping 490 00:52:42.890 --> 00:52:47.939 Grants to States awards. That is always the case. But what's happening now is that you've 491 00:52:47.939 --> 00:52:55.829 also got a CARES Act award running in parallel with your 2020 Grants to States award, and 492 00:52:55.829 --> 00:52:59.559 although it began at a slightly different period, it will end at the same time, September 493 00:52:59.559 --> 00:53:06.619 30 of next year. And then you'll report on that in the SPR, together with your other 494 00:53:06.619 --> 00:53:11.619 award. So I'm going to do a few slides quick on SPR reporting, and then make sure that 495 00:53:11.619 --> 00:53:19.390 we have a little bit of time for questions. For CARES Act, we want you to report in the 496 00:53:19.390 --> 00:53:26.010 SPR as you would for your normal Grants to States funds. The first reporting that we're 497 00:53:26.010 --> 00:53:32.249 going to see on this will actually be this coming December, and it's financial only, 498 00:53:32.249 --> 00:53:37.199 because you will report on both your fiscal year 2020 and your CARES Act awards in your 499 00:53:37.199 --> 00:53:44.689 interim federal financial report. There is a space for log numbers to fit multiple ones, 500 00:53:44.689 --> 00:53:49.510 and we've got an illustration of that on the slide. And again, this particular financial 501 00:53:49.510 --> 00:53:56.749 report goes through the SPR. There's report language that is sometimes shown up in the 502 00:53:56.749 --> 00:54:01.259 eGMS, but we want you to report this data in the SPR. 503 00:54:01.259 --> 00:54:11.299 When it comes time to report your final CARES Act award, that will be next December of 2021. 504 00:54:11.299 --> 00:54:17.109 They're going to be, again, reported alongside -- CARES Act and FY2020 awards will all be 505 00:54:17.109 --> 00:54:22.150 reported together. The way we want you to differentiate any of your CARES Act awards 506 00:54:22.150 --> 00:54:28.329 in the SPR, by giving them a title prefix of CARES Act. On the slide there's two examples 507 00:54:28.329 --> 00:54:33.029 of projects that don't have that prefix, so presumably they're part of your fiscal 2020 508 00:54:33.029 --> 00:54:36.700 allotment, and then there's a couple of examples that do have the CARES Act prefix. 509 00:54:36.700 --> 00:54:42.349 So that would tell your program officer and the general public, when this gets out into 510 00:54:42.349 --> 00:54:48.219 the SPR public view, that you've got a couple of different kinds of projects going on here. 511 00:54:48.219 --> 00:54:52.930 And for any of your CARES Act projects, they work a little differently than your other 512 00:54:52.930 --> 00:54:58.439 projects. The Act wasn't in place until this spring, and we didn't issue your awards until 513 00:54:58.439 --> 00:55:06.559 April 21, so for any CARES Act projects, your start date should not be before April 21. 514 00:55:06.559 --> 00:55:11.900 And your end date can be shorter. If you do some rapid response projects and they end 515 00:55:11.900 --> 00:55:19.579 this fall, make sure that your end date in the SPR reflects that. 516 00:55:19.579 --> 00:55:24.929 A note on the financials for the final report. This is your financial status report. So once 517 00:55:24.929 --> 00:55:30.769 again, it's going to be combined funds for fiscal 2020 and CARES Act with two log numbers. 518 00:55:30.769 --> 00:55:38.029 As much as possible, we want your CARES Act projects reported separately, but we realize 519 00:55:38.029 --> 00:55:43.799 there might be some instances where a project that you report on next year uses both fiscal 520 00:55:43.799 --> 00:55:50.189 2020 funds and CARES Act funds, and if that's the case, there's only one column for federal 521 00:55:50.189 --> 00:55:56.400 funds in the SPR, in the budget area, so you can put your combined total in the numerical 522 00:55:56.400 --> 00:56:02.140 field, but be sure in the description that you differentiate the CARES Act funds from 523 00:56:02.140 --> 00:56:08.299 the fiscal 2020 LSTA funds so that we can know which funds were going where, as we're 524 00:56:08.299 --> 00:56:17.019 reviewing those projects. So just as a summary, again, this coming year 525 00:56:17.019 --> 00:56:21.549 you'll only need to report on some financial data around your CARES Act funds, and next 526 00:56:21.549 --> 00:56:27.359 year you'll do the full reporting in the SPR and your CARES Act funds. And just a note 527 00:56:27.359 --> 00:56:32.729 about maintenance of effort, because we know some of you have had questions about this. 528 00:56:32.729 --> 00:56:40.469 MOE is always based on your three-year average. So we are not expecting you to report more 529 00:56:40.469 --> 00:56:47.829 MOE funds next year because you received additional CARES Act funds this year. It's still based 530 00:56:47.829 --> 00:56:54.220 on a three-year average, and we'll still have the future MOE waiver process for any states 531 00:56:54.220 --> 00:56:59.999 whose budgets were affected this year and in future years. We understand that budgets 532 00:56:59.999 --> 00:57:06.849 are very much in flux right now, and we will have the existing mechanisms of the MOE waiver 533 00:57:06.849 --> 00:57:13.260 process to address those. And just a final note in the SPR system. We 534 00:57:13.260 --> 00:57:20.989 know that especially with the financial status report, the FSR, there are some auto calculations 535 00:57:20.989 --> 00:57:25.749 that happen around match in particular, and we are already working with our vendor to 536 00:57:25.749 --> 00:57:31.249 make sure that things are appropriately reflected there next year. This will not affect your 537 00:57:31.249 --> 00:57:39.109 interim FFR, but it is a note for the final, so we have time to work it out. 538 00:57:39.109 --> 00:57:46.609 This is, at the end of the day, an unprecedented moment in the history of our program, and 539 00:57:46.609 --> 00:57:53.170 we know that you are all rising to the challenge like superheroes. So we'll just end by saying 540 00:57:53.170 --> 00:57:56.309 we're close to the end of the hour. We're probably not going to get through a lot of 541 00:57:56.309 --> 00:58:00.799 questions, but we're happy to talk through individual concerns. We'll follow up after 542 00:58:00.799 --> 00:58:05.910 the conference with individual questions that you've asked here, and we just want to thank 543 00:58:05.910 --> 00:58:11.730 you now for all that you do to serve communities in need. It is more important than ever. 544 00:58:11.730 --> 00:58:19.089 Deirdre, with our last two minutes, would you like to surface a question or two? 545 00:58:19.089 --> 00:58:27.819 MS. GONSALVES: Sure. I have two questions regarding construction costs. One is is labor 546 00:58:27.819 --> 00:58:35.109 for installing sneeze guards and other protective devices covered by this funding, and is internal 547 00:58:35.109 --> 00:58:43.299 cabling allowable or is it construction? MS. DEVOE: This might be case-by-case questions. 548 00:58:43.299 --> 00:58:51.599 We tend to say that if things can be installed without specialized labor, like if a staff 549 00:58:51.599 --> 00:58:58.309 member could install something with a screwdriver and if it's moveable and could be disassembled 550 00:58:58.309 --> 00:59:03.559 and taken to another place, then it could possibly be allowable. But as soon as you 551 00:59:03.559 --> 00:59:09.049 start to invoke specialized construction trades and construction equipment, you're probably 552 00:59:09.049 --> 00:59:16.449 tipping into the balance of unallowable. So if you want to follow up with a specific example, 553 00:59:16.449 --> 00:59:19.970 your program officer can help you make that call. 554 00:59:19.970 --> 00:59:30.410 MS. GONSALVES: And a broader question is the CARES Act apply to both libraries and museums? 555 00:59:30.410 --> 00:59:38.130 MS. DEVOE: Yes. The broader CARES Act, which was the public law, mentioned both libraries 556 00:59:38.130 --> 00:59:45.549 and museums, and also tribes. The Grants to States portion of the CARES Act is administered 557 00:59:45.549 --> 00:59:54.809 by all of you, so we, because it's statutory, defer to your eligibility requirements. And 558 00:59:54.809 --> 01:00:01.199 you set that eligibility. So if you can make grants to museum libraries, for example, then 559 01:00:01.199 --> 01:00:06.680 they would be eligible entities if you determine that that's how you want to use the money. 560 01:00:06.680 --> 01:00:10.809 But ultimately a lot of that eligibility is up to you. 561 01:00:10.809 --> 01:00:17.900 MS. GONSALVES: Just one last question. Would you be able to share any examples of rapid 562 01:00:17.900 --> 01:00:23.799 response projects? MS. DEVOE: Rapid response projects. I think, 563 01:00:23.799 --> 01:00:29.880 given our time, I won't fumble around, but I know that some of you are already doing 564 01:00:29.880 --> 01:00:38.469 response projects and buying devices and deploying devices to the field, so it runs the gamut, 565 01:00:38.469 --> 01:00:42.630 and I have a feeling we're going to start to see a lot of coverage of these exciting 566 01:00:42.630 --> 01:00:47.420 projects. With that, I'll just thank you again. Let 567 01:00:47.420 --> 01:00:53.299 you know that we have a ten-minute break coming up, and after the ten-minute break is over, 568 01:00:53.299 --> 01:00:59.049 you're going to hear, if you come back, reflections from our program officers, Michele and Madison, 569 01:00:59.049 --> 01:01:03.819 about the SPR. So thanks for hanging in there with us, and again, if your questions wasn't 570 01:01:03.819 --> 01:01:06.449 answered, we'll follow up with you after.