GRANTS PROCESS

(Presidential Executive Order 12372)

The Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) is responsible for implementing Presidential Executive Order 12372. The Order requires federal agencies to use state and local processes of intergovernmental coordination for review of federal financial assistance applications, direct development activities, and environmental documents.

Many federal financial assistance applications specifically instruct the applicant to contact the State Single Point of Contact to ensure coordination of state and local review. The State Clearinghouse (SCH), within OPR, fulfills this role.

The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) contains an appendix entitled "Programs Requiring Executive Order 12372 Review," which lists all the programs requiring review in the State of California. Grant applicants should consult the CFDA to determine whether the program they are applying for is generally subject to intergovernmental review. Applicants also may call SCH or check the SCH web site to make this determination.

Of those programs generally subject to intergovernmental review, only some of them may be subject to review by the State of California. OPR is responsible for selecting the federal programs which must be reviewed by the State. If you are applying for a federal grant or loan that is on the CFDA list and it is one of the programs selected for review by the State of California, you must contact the SCH as follows.

Applicants for federal assistance programs covered under E.O. 12372 must send a copy of the Federal Standard Form 424 to SCH and to their appropriate Areawide Clearinghouse (see page 14). Form 424 is the cover sheet of the grant application and is entitled, "Application for Federal Financial Assistance." It is not necessary to transmit the entire application package to SCH.

Form 424 is date stamped upon receipt by SCH, which begins a 30-day review period. If a Notice of Intent to Comment is received from any agency within the first 30 days of the review period, the review period is automatically extended 30 days, allowing a total review period of not more than 60 days. This extension is intended to allow a commenting agency sufficient time to submit comments.

SCH does not assign SCH numbers to grant applications, nor are the grant applications tracked in a database. (The grants database has been discontinued.)

SCH notifies the public of the grant applications by publishing a bi-monthly newsletter, which is distributed to state and local agencies and private individuals, upon request. Copies of all Form 424s received by SCH for the preceding two-week period are included in the SCH Newsletter. The Newsletter allows agencies and individuals the opportunity to review these applications, and to decide whether they would like to comment on a particular application. Since SCH does not receive a complete copy of the federal assistance proposal, any person wishing to review a proposal must contact the applicant directly for more information.

At the end of the review period, SCH will send a Letter of Compliance to the applicant upon request. This ends SCH involvement in the grant review process.

 

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