Closing out your year…

If you blinked on September 30 you may have missed the fact that a new year for your federal IL grants has begun. We talked about this on TA calls, but if you missed it, here are a few things you need to know.

1. You cannot carry over your Subchapter (Part) C funds from the 2018-2019 fiscal year into the 2019-2020 fiscal year (the one we are in now). Your last draw or two of money from 2018-2019 can only be for funds that were encumbered in that year and you just haven’t paid the bill yet.
2. Expenses need to be charged in the year they occurred. This means you cannot prepay expenses that are happening in October with funds from your 2018-2019 grant that ended September 29. To those who said, when I asked if they have spent their funds, “No, but that is okay. I will just send more people to the APRIL conference”, I have to say, sorry, but you can’t pay APRIL expenses from October, 2019 — not even the registration — with last year’s money because the conference occurs this year. (It is a great conference, but you had to budget it for the year it takes place.)
3. There are a few of you still left out there that have been drawing down 1/12 of your funding every month, and so are drawing down the last of that money from 2018-2019 about now. That isn’t allowed, either. You are expected to draw down funds that you will expend immediately. You need to figure out your spending, including checks you haven’t issued yet, and draw funds against those actual costs. You can’t draw down 1/12 and then put you don’t spend in savings. Your grants can only pay for costs you have actually incurred.
4. You need to have a current budget in place, depending on your center’s fiscal year, and your board needs to approve it prior to the beginning of that fiscal year. You do not need to wait until you know all your grant amounts. The budget it a projection and you can update it if needed.
5. As you close your fiscal year, your board needs to make a decision regarding an audit. You cannot charge the costs of a single audit to your grants unless you spent more than $750,000 in federal funds. If your federal spending was less than that amount, we recommend that the board engage an auditor to conduct a financial statement audit. This is an allowable cost as long as it is properly allocated across your funding sources.
6. It isn’t too soon to start on your Program Progress (formerly 704) Report. You have already received the information from ACL/Office of Independent Living Projects. If not, let me know and I will put you in touch with your Program Officer. You need to know what your data says and what you want to include, so check it out sooner rather than later. It is due December 31, but you want to double check everything to make sure all your information is gathered to show your Center is the best possible light.