The Superintendent and/or Business Administrator should examine all grant applications. He/she will review the grant to ensure all grants that are applied for are in the best interest of the district. Some grants, for example, require the school or district to match dollar for dollar the amount granted. Unless the school or district knows about this and agrees to it, the grant will likely become moot. Purchases made with grant money are property of the district, and will be assigned to the location/program which the grant was given.
Fiscal agent agreement grants should not be agreed to unless both the Superintendent and Business Administrator agree to the fiscal agent relationship with Board of Education approval. Fiscal agent arrangements typically occur when other entities ask the District to handle all aspects of a grant that is not the District’s grant. For example, the Utah State Office of Education (USOE) has some funds with which they either do not want to administer or cannot administer. So they “grant” the money to the District and have the District oversee its use. The real grantor is USOE. The real recipient is the same as if USOE had performed the grant. The District is simply a middle manager. Such arrangements cost the District large amounts of hours to oversee, generally without much benefit.
It is the responsibility of the budget director over the grant to ensure proper compliance with grant requirements. This includes, but is not limited to, State and Federal regulations and requirements as well as Federal Office of Management and Budget Circular A-87.
Reimbursable grants are often subject to specific Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and financial accounting and reporting requirements. Grants managed through the State of Utah or the Federal Government must have the Business Administrator review the grant reimbursement request/claim prior to submission in order to ensure all accounting and compliance requirements have been met. The appropriate indirect costs will be added when allowed.