Grants & Awards: LGRMIF: Grant Application & Reference Material: General Information:

Summary of Recent Changes

The LGRMIF grants program has changed recently to conform with new grants administration requirements issued by the State Education Department. The application forms, structure of the narrative, and evaluation criteria have been revised to conform to these requirements.  Since all changes cannot be listed here, it is important to read this booklet carefully. The following are some of the more significant changes we have implemented in the past two years:

New this year:

• Due to reduced funding availability, local governments may submit only one project application or participate in only one cooperative project.  Counties and the New York City Register may apply for one County Land Records Initiative grant and one other grant in this cycle.

• Applications for Cooperative projects will receive 10 bonus points instead of 5.

New the past two years:

• Deadline for applications is 1 February 2008. The 2008-2009 grant year will begin on 1 July 2008 and end on 30 June 2009.

• Added the County Land Records Initiative as a subcategory under Active Records. Only county clerks and the New York City Register are eligible to apply under this grant subcategory. Requests in this subcategory may not exceed $75,000.

• Identified as priorities for funding projects that propose to inventory electronic records and that propose to implement the recommendations resulting from an e-records inventory. These projects will receive an additional five points in the numerical ranking of applications. 

• Eliminated Microfilming as a subcategory of the Inactive Records and Historical Records categories. Microfilming is now a separate category.

• Raised the allowable amount for quality control testing of microfilm from $15 to $18 per every fourth roll of original microfilm.

• Added a new form: Application Narrative (LG-NA). Instructions for completing the forms are included in these guidelines.

• Revised the LG-AP form, which is the application cover sheet.

• Eliminated the following forms: Local Governments Participating in Cooperative Effort (LG-2), Records Management Program Questionnaire Form (LG-3), Projects Previously Funded by the LGRMIF (LG-4), Project Position Description Form (LG-5), and Indexing Project Information Form (LG-8).

• Added narrative sections to the budget forms. All applicants must use these sections to justify all budget requests.

• Added the requirement that applicants must submit three quotes for remodeling projects where any one vendor will receive more than $5,000.

• Removed the cap of $5,000 on data conversion under the GIS subcategory. However, if a government does not adequately demonstrate its ability to maintain data over time, reviewers may recommend funding no more than $5,000 for data conversion.