Purpose
The purpose of this section is to help the Project Manager obtain approval to advertise from granting agencies.
References
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Responsibilities
Project Manager (PM): The responsibility for making sure that the contract documents comply with the granting agency’s requirements lies with the PM. Oftentimes the requirements are very specific and the process of documenting compliance with the requirements is very involved. The PM should work closely with the granting agency. Other resources that the PM may draw on are the: City Attorney’s Office, Office of Accounting, Administration Division for the Bureau, and the Financial Management Division of the Bureau of Sanitation.
Project Engineer (PE): On large or complex projects the PM may bring in a PE to assist the PM with his/her responsibilities.
Procedure
There are various ways a project can be funded. In some instances, the funding for a project comes from a grant or loan from an outside agency. Granting agencies are any agencies outside of the city that provide funding for projects. These may include county, state, or federal government agencies as well as private entities. This is by no means a complete list of agencies that provide funding for projects. The purpose of this section is to help the Project Manager comply with requirements for grant-funded projects.
When a project is grant funded, the approval must be received from the granting agency prior to the advertising of the project. Without the approval, there is no guarantee that funds will be available to award the contract.
If the project is grant funded, the first step should be to get in contact with the granting agency and obtain the requirements necessary for compliance with the grant. This should be done in the early stages of the project. The PM should make a list of the requirements. After compiling the list, it should be reviewed with the granting agency for completeness.
Documentation of compliance is very important and should be spelled out very clearly as to what will be required and how it will be recorded. Failure to comply at any point in the project could jeopardize the grant funding. The PM should make a list of every requirement and when and how it is to be documented for each phase of the project. This list should be reviewed periodically throughout the project with the project team as well as the granting agency.
Some of the requirements may add specific features to the design that might not be done otherwise. An example of this may be, the agency requiring review and approval of the final plans and specifications prior to bid and award of the project. Not including time for this review in the project schedule will delay the project. The granting agency may also require that value engineering be performed on the project prior to advertisement. In some cases, the agencies may want to review and approve change orders prior to issuance or may place a financial cap on the amount of grant reimbursed change orders. The granting agencies may require changes to the specifications. For example, Federal agencies sometimes require the listing of two or equal proposed pieces of equipment or products on all items called out in the specifications or on the plan sheets.
There is no way to list all possible requirements for approval from granting agencies as each agency will have different requirements. In fact, the requirements from a single agency may be different from one year to the next. The only way to ensure compliance is to work closely with each agency on each individual project.
Related Procedures
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LINKS / ATTACHMENTS
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