Grants & Awards: LGRMIF: Grant Application & Reference Material: Grants Review:

Review Process

State Archives staff in the Grants Administration Unit first review applications for eligibility and completeness. They will not send forward for further review applications that do not meet basic eligibility requirements, do not include all the required forms, or do not have the appropriate signatures. A local government is responsible for meeting eligibility requirements and for submitting a complete application.

Review panels are created based on grant categories and subcategories.  Outside expert reviewers are assigned to panels to review grants in their areas of expertise. Each reviewer evaluates approximately forty grant applications apiece and assigns each application a score based on information in the Application Narrative Form (LG-NA) and Budget Code and Narrative forms. The reviewers’ ranking criteria are included in on pages 44-46 of this booklet.

In May, reviewers convene as panels in Albany, deliberate in detail on the applications they have read, reconcile differences in conclusions from their preliminary reviews, assign each application a final score, rank each one according to those scores, and make funding recommendations.  These recommendations will be made in the order of ranking until available funds are depleted. In case of a tie, the application with the lower funding request will be given priority. The State Archives reserves the right to apply unused funds from one panel to other panels.