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November 2024 VSP newsletter

In this issue:

Program updates:

• Friendly financial reminders

• VSP Task Force

• Nov. 1 Statewide Advisory Committee recording

Share your feedback:

• Preparing for 10-year reports

• County & Technical Panel tour survey

Additional resources:

• WDFW seeks members for Regional Engagement Committees: N. Puget Sound and N. Central WA

• Stormwater Strategic Initiative Lead request for proposals

Check out VSP resources: 
https://www.vsp.wa.gov/

Program updates:

Friendly financial reminders

• Counties are required to pay the Technical Service Provider/Conservation Districts before requesting reimbursement from SCC. This is required per the SCC Grant and Contract Policy and Procedure Manual, Section 6.

• The District Implemented Projects (DIP) Close Out Form is now available on the VSP Billing page. For those utilizing DIPs, this form is required to be submitted with the final DIP billing.

• If you know a capital cost-share project will not be able to be completed by June 30, 2025, or you have unused project or technical assistance (TA) funds on a completed cost share, please complete the returned funds form. Thank you to all who have returned funding so it can be reallocated in time for the end of this biennium!

• We are nearing completion of the Oct. capital funding round. Please stay tuned for award notifications. We will let you know soon if we have any additional funding to conduct a next round.

VSP Task Force

One outcome of the VSP stakeholder meeting in Feb. 2024 was to form a working group to share feedback and help inform program development and changes. We will refer to this group as a VSP Task Torce (since "workgroup" is already in use for VSP). We will have two different task forces, one to focus on program updates and another to focus on monitoring (tbd).

If you haven't already you can still join the upcoming program updates task force to focus on:

• Dec. to Jan. - Development of next 5-year reporting template. 
• Jan. to Feb. - Program funding guidelines update.

Statewide Advisory Committee meeting, Nov. 1 recording

Thank you to the many of you who joined us at the Nov. 1 Statewide Advisory Committee (SAC) meeting in Lacey and online. We greatly appreciate your participation as we aim to best coordinate 10-year reporting process and guidance as well as 2025 Joint Technical Panel (TP) and SAC meetings. 

Share your feedback:

Preparing for 10-year reports

This November marks one-year before 10-year reports for 25 counties will be due, starting Nov. 17, 2025. See the schedule. 

If you tuned into the Nov. 1, 2024 Statewide Advisory Commitee (SAC) meeting, we discussed areas where we could better clarify reporting guidance and noted important conversations we will need to have as a community in this coming year at Joint Statewide Advisory Committee (SAC) and Technical Panel (TP) meetings. We will also have a new reporting template that should make this report process easier for counties and reviewers. Additionally, SCC is seeking additional ideas for how best to provide feedback before reports are due (considering available capacity).

We are seeking your feedback on these two questions:

1. Would your county attend office hours with technical panel staff held in the months leading up to your report deadline to assist with your report preparations?

2. Would your county turn in a draft report ahead of the official due date if you could receive initial reviewer feedback? 

County & Technical Panel tour survey 

The VSP Technical Panel Coordinators have been conducting site tours to all the VSP Counties. Site visits have been an opportunity for counties to show the VSP Coordinators implemented projects, and create a space for informal conversation regarding VSP implementation and monitoring. Our goal has been to visit each county every other year, to date we have visited every VSP county, and have started our second round.  

We have found these site visits to be useful in better understanding how each county is implementing VSP and their challenges. We plan to continue planning the visits and are seeking feedback to improve the process in the future. Please provide feedback in this survey so we can continue to improve the process. 

We appreciate your time and your feedback, 

- Sean, Chelsea, Leslie, Levi, and Sarah 

Additional resources:

WDFW seeks members for Regional Engagement Committees

WDFW is recruiting advisory committee members in North Puget Sound and North Central Washington to inform the agency’s regional conservation efforts and decision making. Applications due by Dec. 2, 2025.

Stormwater Strategic Initiative Lead request for proposals

Grant applications are open! The Strategic Initiative Lead Teams provide grants to advance Puget Sound Recovery by investing in both programmatic and local actions that accelerate recovery. These recovery actions are designed to protect and restore habitat, water quality and harvestable shellfish beds. These results are intimately tied to improving conditions for humans and centering equity and climate change.

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