Each funding source and each grant has grant requirements that are unique to that particular program and to that particular funding agency such as the U.S. Department of Education’s EDGAR and the NSF Grant Proposal and Procedures Guide. The Federal Government also has Office of Management and Budget Circulars (typically referred to as OMB Circulars) that affect how the funds are to be managed in all Federal grants. Therefore, it is critical for the Project Director to become very familiar with the contents of the grant proposal, especially if you did not write the proposal, as well as all the grant requirements referenced in the grant project’s award documents. You do not want to inadvertently fail to comply with the grant requirements because you never took the time to read them.
The award documents typically include specific information and terms and conditions about allowable and unallowable activities and costs, reporting requirements, situations that require program officer approval, and new requirements. An example of a new Federal requirement that was included in recently awarded grants was an attachment regarding the “Prohibition of Text Messaging and Emailing While Driving During Official Federal Grant Business”. This requirement was the result of an Executive Order and prohibits “Federal grant recipients, sub recipients and their grant personnel from text messaging while driving a government owned vehicle, or while driving their own privately owned vehicle during official grant business, or from using government supplied electronic equipment to text message or email when driving.”
In the case of multi-year grants, it is also important to review the continuing award documents carefully each year for new terms and conditions or requirements that may not have been included in the original award documents. It is also not uncommon for program officers to send additional information to the project directors only concerning new requirements or changes. The Project Director should review these very carefully and provide them to their contacts in Grants Accounting and in the District Grants Development and Management. TRIO Project Directors, for example, received these types of communications in reference to excess carry-forward.