Grants
Grants News
4/27/24 Beginning May 13, 2024, Karin Lawler, formerly our temporary Accounts Payable Accountant, will be our Stimulus Grants Accountant II, replacing the role that Glenn Ehlert left to become our Federal Grants Accountant. We are excited to have her join the grants team.
4/8/2024 We are happy to announce that Glenn Ehlert is now our Federal Grants Accountant II! He previously was working as our SLFRF Accountant II.
The Department of Natural Resources receives various types of Federal and Non-Federal funding throughout the year. These funds come with specific financial requirements and the Grants Team provides DNR Divisions with centralized financial services to ensure compliance with accounting, invoicing, and reporting needs. The Grants Team also serves as a liaison between the State Controller’s Office, the State Treasury, and external grantors. Please review the OSC Grants Site as well as the CORE Cost Accounting Site links above for CORE training and other important grant information. Feel free to contact the DNR Grant Team to assist you with any questions.
Background
Any document that provides additional funding will be referred to as a "grant." You may receive a document titled a Cooperative Agreement, a Memorandum of Understanding, a Federal Purchase Order, a Grant Award, or any other name, and the DNR Grants Team is the place to start. The Grants Team will setup the grant in the CORE Cost Accounting system so that you may start spending the grant funds. Some departments (such as CPW) with setup experience, will have their Accountants enter the proper CORE documents to do so, consulting with our team when questions arise.
The DNR Grants Team provides guidance and assistance on the set up and activation of the grant spending authority in CORE. The grants are monitored through CORE and the use of a department wide database to ensure grant billings and financial reports are processed in a timely manner.
Federal grants must comply with 2CFR200 or the "Uniform Guidance", which defines the federal requirements and allowability of expenses. In addition, federal grants incur indirect costs based on the personal service (salaries and benefits) expenses charged to the grant.
Grant Setup Modification (GSM) Form, previously known as "Blue Sheet"
Grant Setup Modification Form (GSM) is a form used to set up or modify a grant.
This form contains all the necessary information and is required to be attached as the cover sheet for grant award packets for the DNR Accounting Grant Team to perform all the necessary tasks for Divisions in the statewide accounting system - CORE.
The format is an Excel file and it used to be printed on a blue sheet of paper, before the department went digital and physical files were kept. That is where the nickname "Blue Sheet" comes from. The DNR Accounting Grant Team has setup a standard form for the divisions to use in the link above, please download and fill out in Excel then print to PDF before sending to DNR Grants (see Contact Us button on menu above).
Once a grant is set up or modified in CORE, divisions perform all the necessary tasks related to the grant per their delegated responsibilities.
SAM UEI (formerly DUNS)
Effective 4/1/2022 the Federal government will now use the SAM Unique Entity Identifier (UEI).
The SAM number for DNR is SXLMSPNKDSJ8
Please provide this new SAM UEI to your existing grant subrecipients. Please also use the UEI on all of your new grant applications, as well as your contracts to subrecipients. You can find more information on the SAM.gov Unique Entity Identification (EUI) webpage.
Use the UEI number on all federal grant applications. This number is tied to the DNR banking information used for deposit of federal funds at Colorado State Treasury. The SAM number is maintained by the DNR Grants Team to ensure that banking and contact information is correct. This is important because all Federal cash draws are centrally processed by the DNR Grants Team.
Previously, entities were identified by a DUNS Number, issued by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), which was a unique nine digit ID number for each physical location of a business. In DNR we maintained one DUNS number for all federal grants since we had centralized federal grant reporting and cash draws. The old DUNS number was 879015899. It may be helpful to know that some Federal Agencies no longer accepted DUNS on applications on or after April 1, 2022. In addition, there was a new version of the SF-424 Form released.
American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)/State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF)
Indirect Cost Rates - Overview
Each year DNR negotiates an indirect rate with the federal government based on actual overhead expenditures. The actual overhead expenditures are based on the personnel services (payroll) expenses for the personnel in each division that perform the administration of the whole division. It should also be noted that if any part of a payroll expense is charged directly to a federal grant, then none of that persons payroll is included in the calculation of the rate. The rate will change each fiscal year. For example, a federal grant that covers 3 state fiscal years will have three separate indirect rates throughout the life of the grant. This rate is only charged on federal grants and should be included in the grant budget.
DNR negotiates a separate federal indirect rate for each division in the department. This means each division has a unique indirect rate based on the overhead expenditures allocated to that division. The rate includes a DNR share and a division share. Although the full rate is applied to the grant, each division keeps part of the indirect recovery to support the divisional overhead costs. The department share is transferred to EDO to support the director’s office.
See the indirect cost rates link for Fiscal Years 2024, 2023, and 2022 below.
