DNR Grants Unit Journal for Pass-Through Recipients
July 2015
FY16 Grant Agreements, along with the related attachments, will be emailed to FY16 ENRTF and OHF appropriation recipients in July. We have finalized the documents and will send them to you once the funds have been encumbered. If your organization is a prior recipient, you will notice some changes to Attachment E, the Reimbursement Manual, and the Grant Agreement.
Here is a summary of the modifications to each. The updated Reimbursement Manual and Attachment E will be emailed to all current appropriation recipients
The few
updates in Attachment E were again made this year in consultation with
the DNR Appraisal Unit and address: a change in USPAP guidelines, questions
from appropriation recipients and appraisers that came up through the last
year, and clarification of existing Attachment E language/requirements.
- Closing on a property should happen within one year of
executing the purchase agreement. We ask that you contact your Grants
Specialist if you do not anticipate this being possible on an acquisition.
- A summary appraisal report used to be an option for
properties valued at $20,001-$99,999. That is no longer an option in the newest
USPAP guidelines so all properties valued at over $20,000 must have an
appraisal completed by a Certified General Level 4 appraiser licensed in
Minnesota.
- The grant recipient must provide the appraiser with not only
a full legal description, but also an estimate of the acreage of the property
being acquired.
- If the results of a survey, negotiation, or title work
change information relevant to the appraisal, including, but not limited to the
legal description, acreage, or ownership, this information must be given to the
appraiser to consider. The appraiser
must then provide written documentation (an email is fine) stating if the new
information has changed the estimated market value in the report. If there is a change, the appraiser must
provide appropriate supporting evidence and a new DNR certification reflecting
the new estimated market value.
- Appraisal reviews must be complete prior to submitting a
request for reimbursement and it is recommended they are completed prior to
obtaining an executed purchase agreement.
Reimbursement Manual
-
The
Department of Administration’s Office of Grants Management updated their
legislatively-named grant agreement template for NGOs with new best practice
sub-contracting thresholds. Thresholds for municipalities are in statute. We
have updated the NGO thresholds in our grant agreement to match those in the
OGM template, but have also received approval from the OGM Executive Director
to allow NGO’s to continue to request to use their own organization’s
sub-contracting policies/thresholds with prior review/approval by the DNR
Grants Unit. This is accomplished via Attachment B.
Grant Agreement
-
There has been placeholder language in the grant
agreement for the past couple years that restorations and enhancements would be
subject to pollinator best management practices when the management practices
were completed. They are now complete and that placeholder language has been
updated (Clause 22). The DNR Grants Unit notified current appropriation
recipients who do that sort of work currently about this update for FY16 this
winter.
The Grants Unit would like to thank you for meeting with us either in person or over the phone for our monitoring visits. We have been busy the past couple of months and are now complete with our FY15 required visits. See you in FY16!
The Grants Unit will again be offering a webinar training on
the Reimbursement Manual and the associated processes this fall. Notifications with details will be sent via email in August. We encourage everyone who is involved
with your internal payment process to attend, as there is a lot of pertinent
information shared.
If your appropriation came to an end on June 30, 2015, please send your Grants Specialist any remaining reimbursement requests as soon as possible. Please remember that we cannot reimburse any costs incurred after June 30, and until the final report is approved by the council.
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