As Centers and SILCs, we have a number of regulations that we follow, and some take priority over others. So if they don’t say the same thing, which one are we supposed to follow?
Recently the Independent Living Administration clarified to us that the Assurances for the Designated State Entity (DSE) are now included in the remarks section (6) of the ILS Notice of Award (NoA). The Assurances are adopted when the DSE Administrator accepts the NoA.
The terms and conditions of a NoA and other requirements have the following order of precedence: (1) statute (in our case the Rehabilitation Act); (2) executive order; (3) program regulation found in 45 CFR 1329 (which references some other applicable regulations); (4) administrative regulation found in 45 CFR Part 75; (5) agency policies; and (6) any additional terms and conditions and remarks on the NoA.
A good example of how one of these pieces might contradict another is found in the requirement in the Rehabilitation Act that Centers for Independent Living conduct Resource Development (Section 725 (b)(7). This is juxtaposed with the prohibition on spending federal dollars to fund raise found in 45 CFR Part 75. As you can see, the Rehabilitation Act as the statute takes precedence over the administrative regulation.
This is not to say that Resource Development and Fund Raising are precisely the same thing, but it is allowed for SILCs and required for CILs to conduct resource development using federal funds. At the very least, you should have a category for the cost of resouce development in your chart of accounts and your own internal definition of these terms to assure you are not paying for fund raising with federal dollars.