May 12, 2017
PRESENT: Ed Barrett, Nick Isgro, Beth Lambert, Joe Young, David Wihry, Nicki Pellenz, Maryalice Crofton
The meeting began at 8:30 am by teleconference.
1. CNCS updates:
AmeriCorps funding for federal FY2017 was appropriated. It was the same level as FY2016. Yesterday, the Corporation sent the allocation chart for AmeriCorps State Formula dollars. This allocation is one of the two funding mechanisms for AmeriCorps grants in the state. It is population based so Maine gets the minimum level. This year, due to the appropriation amount, the statutory minimum of $600,000 was increased to $645,341.
It was noted that the FY2017 appropriation underwrites the awards for programs that will operated from Aug 2017 through Aug 2018. MCCS has full decision-making authority over the Formula grants but the Competitive grants are decided by the federal agency.
Competitive Grant application decisions were announced by CNCS last Friday. LearningWorks and Maine Conservation Crops continuations were approved for the number of positions and dollars requested. Of the two new proposals entered into the national competition, USM Maine Campus Compact was the one selected for funding. The Bangor program to serve Aroostook, Washington, and Penobscot was not selected. The federal feedback is sparse so there is not much guidance on what could be improved in a future application.
2. AC Rural Competition- Task force members were asked if the following schedule for review will cause any problems. Those present indicated it made sense and the timeframes for task force work are acceptable.
- Submission deadline May 16th and proposals go to Peer Reviewers May 18th.
- The Peer Reviewer consensus scoring call will be either May 25th or 26th.
- The staff analysis will be due to GTF by May 26th, everything else will be posted as early as May 18th to give GTF more time to read the submitted applications.
- The GTF Consensus Meeting will be scheduled for June 1st or 2nd and the GTF regular monthly meeting is on the 9th.
3. In anticipation of the major triennial competition which is starts late fall 2017 existing grant policies were reviewed.
- The task force recommends the Commission repeal "Expectations of Grantees." Many of the items have moved into compliance monitoring over the years and some have become an emphasis under performance measurement.
- Recommend adding a fourth exception to the policy limiting host sites to three years. Full text of the revised policy is attached.
- Updates to Commission Grant Policies (last revised 2008) were developed. See attached for recommended changes. It was noted that the policies should be on a regular schedule for review and the schedule should be tied to the major triennial competition. Note that Commission policies are set in the context of the federal program policies and Code of Federal Regulations for grant programs. They are not all-encompassing but are in addition to the federal set.
4. Formula Continuation Grant Applications – Two AmeriCorps State Formula programs are eligible for year three funding and position allocations. The continuation applications and performance assessments were posted for task force review. In addition, each was assigned to a team of members for close scrutiny.
- RSU 14- SySTEM REAL was reviewed by Ed and Carol. Although Carol is not on the call today, she submitted her recommendation to continue funding by email to the entire task force. Ed said he concurred. The program has a new manager who is addressing all the problems and concerns. In particular, the new director is being aggressive about recruitment and dealing with the monitoring findings. After some discussion, the recommendation from the task force is to fund SySTEM REAL for year three at $208,825 and 35 AmeriCorps positions totaling 15.35 Member Service Years.
- Multilingual Leadership Corps was reviewed by Joe Young and Nicki Pellenz. They agreed the program continuation request should be authorized with the number of positions and funding requested. After brief discussion, the task force members agreed to recommend that the Multilingual Leadership Corps should be funded for year three at $265,187 and 44 AmeriCorps positions totaling 21.19 Member Service Years.
David noted he will need Ed to make the report for the Task Force. They will work that out by email.
Reminder that the next regular GTF Monthly Call: Friday June 9th, 8:30 -9:30
There being no other business to discuss, the meeting ended at 9:32 am.