good morning we have an active chatty room
today which is a great sign I'm just the voice from above but I'm here hello I'm
up here I'm so happy to see you I'm Terry devau from the grant to States
program want to welcome everyone who's physically here and then everybody who's
tuning in on the virtual realm and we understand it's about a 50-50 split this
time so that's pretty exciting we continue to bring you here or
wherever here may be and invest in this training because we've seen the effects
of it being a good proactive approach there's a lot of trust in this program
as you may imagine we give you bundles of money every year and we just sort of
like trust you to be good stewards of it and uh that's a little scary but one
thing that we do to ensure that it's all being handled very very well is to bring
you together for this kind of training once a year and it's not something we
can take for granted there may be years where we don't have the opportunity to
be together but currently our imls leadership sees the value in this
training and continues to invest in it and we hope that that'll be the case for
a long long time so we hope uh that you will enjoy
the next few days that you will come to this with a spirit of learning and
collaboration and we thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy
schedules to be here just going to give a few notes at
the outset before I introduce our resident expert of all things
Wisconsin this is a hybrid conference so the most important takeaway I can give
you is that when we are interacting here in the room and someone is saying
something that needs to be heard um make sure that doing it into a microphone uh
we are recording this we want the recording to have good quality audio and
the people listening in online also need to hear your
voices we've learned to keep a dedicated Square on our slides so the zoom uh
folks have got that all set up for the virtual people and you shouldn't miss
any content on the slides Cindy and Laura are our resident
imol sers at the virtual table hello they're going to be um making sure that
all of our virtual folks are with us and engaged and chatting
along and we do have Spanish language interpreters again this year they are
actually in a different room so wherever they are hello we're happy you're here
and um you might see them during breaks the entire conference is in this
room this year we do not have breakout rooms for the first time so we're going
to see how it goes um and in terms of the health and safety
protocols things have changed in the federal government so those of you that
have come before and you've had to certify your health profile like we're
not doing that anymore but we do have these fun little dots that I see many of
you in the room wearing so please mind the dots um green means people are
pretty open to physical contact and yellow a little bit less maybe a fist
bump or an elbow bump and red is people are really just trying to distance
still the restrooms uh if you haven't found them yet are sort of out through
the back doors and to the left
and with that I think I'm going to move on to the non boring stuff so um we are
so pleased to have an official welcome from our really
Dynamic um chief officer of Wisconsin Dr Daryl Williams who is the assistant
State Superintendent at the Department of Public Instruction in
Wisconsin uh he is the really charismatic outward face of a wonderful
team of people at the Wisconsin division of um techn libraries and technology and
we know he's on the road all the time making sure that libraries are valued
and understood for their importance in Wisconsin and uh if you think you had a
tough job during covid I want you to know that Dr Williams was actually
leading the emergency response for the entire state of Wisconsin during the
pandemic so if that gives you any indication of his capabilities um it
sure does for me he has been decades in the field of education and also spent
decades in the Army um he is a decorated veteran with a bronze star and a purple
heart and and I hope you will help me welcome him so that he can welcome
[Applause] us good
morning thank you very much she was telling me all this stuff about myself
as I was sitting over there getting getting me some uh uh coffee this
morning and I said you must have been on the Internet or somewhere
but uh let me just say first and foremost what an honor it is for me to
be here with you you know what I I I said to myself whenever was she had me
reflecting back on the time I was the emergency manager for the state
appointed by the governor for Co I mean you really think about it you know you
walk walk up on somebody and they say oh man you got
Co or do you remember when you know that was a time where if
you uh didn't have a mask on you know when you go inside the store you know if
you if uh nobody wanted uh if you didn't have a mask on you couldn't even get
inside the store and I said man time times have changed cuz if you go inside
the store with a mask on now you're probably going to get the police called
on you at this particular point but let me just say uh it's really great to be
here I want to start off and see if I can just kind
of set the mood a little bit you know I'm um really just a country boy from
Mississippi from a little town called Abbyville Mississippi about 316 people
in it and you know once upon a time there was
this man his name was Mr lead better and Mr lead better he had a hog that didn't
have but three legs and the newspaper boy drove up in
the yard and said to Mr Le better Mr Le better can you tell me why that hog
ain't got with three legs and Mr lebe saidwell son if you really want to know
I'll tell you and he said well he said two years ago this house
was on fire and that
Hall dial 911 and and the fire department came and
saved my wife and he said and last year that same
hog when I fell down and couldn't get up called 911 again
and they came and picked me up and they saved my life and he said well Mr Le
better you still ain't told me why the hog ain't got but three
legs and he said well son when you got a hog that good you can only eat him one
ham at a
time anyway let me just say um it's really an
honor for me to be here with you at this uh conference here today um being told
me if I'm going to sit up here he said do do do three things he said be on time
be brief and be gone so I'mma do that I'm going try to
do that but what I'm going to do I'm just going to say what I came here to
say and then I'm going to sit down but let me just say um I'm going try to be
like James Brown I'mma hit it and quit it but um on behalf of our state
superintendent Dr Jill underly who really wishes she could be here she
tries to be everywhere like myself and um but she really uh thanks you for
all of the work that you all do and thank you for the support that imls has
given us here within the state of uh of of Wisconsin so she really sends her
thanks I want to thank uh Miss devvo and the committee responsible for putting
this conference together and I really want to say thank you for keeping us
Believing by your continued support in the values of librar is not
only across this state but really across this nation I also want to thank our DLT
staff here my main man my rightand Ben who's with us right here today Ben would
you please stand
please Arad I know you're watching so I'mma salute you right here on stage so
he's he's online but uh he's really done a tremendous job and
um let me just say to you you know as a kid growing up in
Mississippi I didn't have access to the library the town that I came that I came
from we had to walk about 15 miles or catch a ride to a place called Oxford
Mississippi in order to have access to the library and I will tell you it was
at that time where I began to realize the power of libraries and the value
that they have inside of the community and this is why I always tell people
everywhere I go the library is the most important place in any school or
Community it's really the only place where you can go everywhere without
really having to go anywhere
so as many of you are aware as well Wisconsin is not
unique as we Face many challenges especially with funding issues with book
bands and so forth just like you all have uh in your resp respective
areas these areas really focus around issues dealing with diversity equity and
inclusion LGBT uh Q uh plus type of issues but our Librarians here within
the state of Wisconsin and I'm sure like yours with the support of communities
just like this and with the imls support have really stood tall to keep our
libraries open while protecting the intellectual
freedom of all people so I say to miss devot and to
your team we honor and we thank you for your dedication your commitment your
devotion but most of all your courage Your courage especially in in this day
and time as history has taught us on more
than one occasion to achieve freedom and our intellectual Freedom it takes many
twist and turns but we at DPI the Department of
Public Instruction we affirm that while you may not read every book that's in
the library there should be a book for
everyone in the library and so I thank you for your support on
that the fact that we are here today all of us representing States from
all around the United States and I believe I saw someone with a sign on
that said Puerto Rico and I'm trying to get to Puerto
Rico just to let you know so if you are you got to have the next conference
there so we can get there yeah and
so it really says that we made a sincere investment in our children and adults
through our libraries all around the United States and I will tell you make
no mistake about it we are in the fight and there's no more important time than
us not only to stand together but to walk shoulder
toosh shoulder as we keep our library strong and vibrant for future
Generations despite the physical distance between us the ties that bind
us are really stronger than the forces against
us because of the support from imls libraries continue to serve as the
heartbeat of our communities so I thank you for the work that you
continue to do and that the work that we continue to do together on behalf of all
people the diversity the
diversity that we really claim within our state and around this nation to be
our strength must proudly be reflected inside of our libraries for all
generations our libraries must be as rich and
diverse as the very people reflected across this great state and around this
nation as all of our past and current struggles we are all weaved into the
past and present fabric of
America we must stand together so here in Wisconsin we are extremely
grateful and thankful to imls for helping us address intellectual Freedom
issues here through funding such as the school
and Public Library Workshop helping us to provide
Consulting time for public libraries to conduct conversations around these
critical issues here in Wisconsin we have it's called Wisconsin libraries
talk about race we all know that religion and race are two the key issues
that most people don't like to talk about but it's those courageous
conversations that you all have allowed us to continue to have those
conversations around to make life a little bit
better and expand for
everyone our uh uh what we call our CCBC you allowed us to match funds with
the CCBC to continue to provide support not only here within Wisconsin but
around the US and so we are very excited about
that
so over the past year one of the many areas that I've been most impressed with
is the work that we have done around Workforce
Development let me just share with you one story as we were at a library far up
north this uh this this veteran was sitting inside of the library and he was
um uh using the library services and trying to find a job and he said to me
that his son had asked him for a couple of dollars to go to the store to buy
something and he said he didn't have it and I mean he really didn't have it and
if you are a nothing against women but if you are a man and you you are
supposed to be the Macho head of the household and your child walks up to you
and asks you for a few dollars and you don't have it and he said that really
bothered him and he said he look he saw the look in his wife's face and the look
on his kids face and he said that he had to go and do something and so he used
the library and at the time that we were there he said that if it were not for
the library and the services that they had there he would
not be sitting there trying to figure out which job to take as he was trying
to pick from three jobs that he had um secur while he was right there inside
the Library so for me for me it said to
me the library is more than just a place to get books it's really a place that's
changing lives for so many wisconsinites and I'm sure in your respective States
as well so I say to all of you who are here
I say to all of you who are online on those days where you question
whether or not you are making a difference I say to
you not only are you making a difference but truly you are the
difference so as assistant State superintendent for Wisconsin
I want to say to all of you welcome to Wisconsin welcome to this conference and
I hope that you enjoy all of the amenities that we have to offer you here
especially in the great City of Milwaukee so welcome and thank you and I
want to do one other thing since I have the
floor uh Ben I would like for you to come right
here and for those being them knows that I I make
pens and so so miss Devo I want to present you with one of
my penss that I made last night so and I made sure that it
writes so I just want to say thank you for all the work that you all do so
she's accepting this in representation for all of you so I'm going to wipe that
brown stuff off my nose a little bit later
on
yeah all right and to arshad see you wish you had have been
here in person now I know you're sitting here looking well hey well it's too late
but I have this for you and it'll be uh we'll have to send it to you and I'm
going give it to Ben and he will give it to
you but I usually don't get a chance to do
this uh that often but I I would tell you I just wanted to really recognize
Ben while he is here Ben since I've been in this role has really been my right
hand and in this virtual environment we don't get a chance to really I can tell
Ben certain things and tell them how much I appreciate it but I like to show
people whenever I get a chance to shake their hand and I just wanted to know how
much I really appreciate and I thank him for all of the work that he does not
only with me but for everybody around the the state of Wisconsin being is a
national figure in the world of libraries and I'm going tell you uh his
uh work is invaluable and so I thought if I can wrap it out the break
it out the
plasket
ah probably should have head all out but
but this is for and this right here is a handmade
iron Bookman so he can put his book right
here this is truly representative of Wisconsin and all his fine qualities and
metal and Harley-Davidson and all this kind of stuff and junkyards as well
yeah thank you all very much it's my honor to be here and um I wish I could
stay here with you all day but I'm going to drive about 4 hours up the road to uh
Washington Island and um but it's my honor to be here with you and I hope you
have a great great conference thank [Applause]
you
okay to are thank you oh thank [Applause]
you thank you Arad and Cindy and thank you Dr Williams a man of many gifts uh
physically and symbolically um this this has been so good to hear from you and to
get inspired and revved up for these next days and for our journey as Federal
stewards of funds so thank you again thank you so much
we'll release him in just a moment but I'm going to get our ice breaker started
this will um have you moving around if you didn't know this is a participatory
conference you will not be seated at all times and this is one of those times so
what we've done in the past if you've been here before is we're going to line
everybody up that's physically in the room by your length of service in a
State Library administra agency so if you are maybe days on the
job you will line yourself up on this side of the room and then it will go
gradually longer and longer until we're down to the people that are decades in
maybe should have retired years ago and are just hanging on because their bosses
are desperate so if that is you you're going to end up on that side of the room
and everybody will be in between so you're going to have to talk to your
neighbor to figure out who's who and then we'll pass a microphone
and you will say your name your role and your state and your length of service
and for virtual this is the same thing we're going to do but through chat and
then Cindy and Laura are going to keep it moving if the popcorn responses die
down so we're GNA get you up out of your seats and go doing we
good ready we're ready room the room is ready we're going to start with the room
then when we're done with the room we're going to hear from um our virtual
spokespeople okay
hello you can say Your Role and maybe your state but I think we heard Montana
so hi I'm
Hello
everys I'm chy am Communications and Grant specialist
at the Wyoming State library and this is my 9 month anniversary
there I Michelle the library development manager in Michigan and it's n months
I'm really glad my lsda coordinator
all hi I'm Danny I'm from North Dakota and I've been the ls coordinator for
about months hi I'm BR I'm from West Virginia and for
the last in weeks I been the administrative Services director in West
Virginia
did i'mi I am from Minnesota I'm L coordinator and I've been there for
about 15 months hi I'm Brenda Hall from Iowa I'm
the library program director and the L coordinator
march22
iuy mons
days good morning my name is I am the assistant State librarian
for the New Hampshire State library and I been in for about 17 months
from Utah um I cheated a little bit I only been our grand coordinator for
about six months but I've worked at the state libr about two
years hi from the L
coordinator hello hello hi I'm Alexander Sanders I'm this microphone I'm
Alexander Sanders I'm from South Carolina I'm the LST coordinator here
and I started in April 2022 so approxim to
Poss I'm R I'm the state librarian of Kanas and I've been years
in I I'm with State Ohio
L I'm Amanda from California and I've been the
Lin coordinator
I am Laur with the North Dakota State Library I've been them for almost years
and I serve as theis director my name is Tera and I'm the
financial director of the hom Department of libraries and that includes LDA and
I've been that since August of 2021 hi my name is in and I'm the
for the last library and I've been there since
December
English
man um year maybe
than the manager ofation and I've been there that Ro since
December of 2019 I'm Alis from Kansas and I'm also
lsda coordinator for years in November this starting
pric gr here also a whole bunch of other stuff
too I'm janer from Department liaries I
am 201 hi I'm Christin I'm at the
Connecticut State Library I'm the LST coordinator the E coordinator the
digital inclusion specialist and other things library and this is my
year I'm Wendy cand I'm currently the Director of Finance and grants at the
South Carolina State library and I've been with the State Library about six
years hians
lii never
L the Aransas Library just a
hey I'm Mary from Maryland State Library agency and I started on P Day
[Music]
2018 the Indian State Library I've been here just over s years
and coordinator and the ca coordinator I'm nion I am the library
development manager and LST coordinator for Rhode Island and I've been there for
about seven years good morning I'm Rebecca from the
State Library I've been
yearsin L from massett my official title is project manager specialist and for
the last years
hi libr Carina I'm linat and almost years so next year I
[Music] get I am Ben Miller I am the director of
Library services for the Department of H construction right here in Wisconsin um
and I've been on in the State library for 9 years
mons Lin
I I
amice li
is hi I'm Walsh and I've been two plus years in New Jersey State library before
that I was seven plus years in Washington State Library so I'm going to
round it up to 10 I'm
CL coordinator at the Washington State library
at but previously years in various roles in State
Library Terry the library development coordinator from Missouri actually been
with the agency for 22 years a half years in
state distri col
I am Chris I coordinator coordinator the project specialist I'm other
jobs there for 13 years and N months hi I'm I'm the associate State
librarian for Ohio and I've been there for 13
years I'm jennifa ex director Mississippi
commission 14 years and 10 years as the
from Virginia I am the LDA coordinator the SDC and state
administrator hi I'm South State library library for 15 years as
hi I'm
Li depart
okay the room did it good job you are all allowed to go back to your tables
and as you do we're going to hear from the virtual
side about who is um who is in the virtual room room so Cindy's got the mic
here we
[Music]
go win award for months but he was justat out by
J well done in Indiana is 3 months was also a newer
person um we one year four months from um another Wisconsin staffer uh we heard
23 years 30 years from a great Caren in Illinois 27 years in Tennessee 16 years
Indiana my dear friend Debbie Hall has 38
years 20 years in Colorado and four years in California there's a huge
California onl all those but as far as I tell Debbie
Hall WIS Debbie Hall wins you heard it here Debbie Hall wins okay thank you
everyone for introducing yourselves and if you notice the imls table was
abstaining it's because we're going to introduce them throughout the course of
the conference don't worry you're going to get to know them too we're going to
move on I'm going to make up a little timing ground because I got the next two
sets of SL so don't worry you're still going to get to your break at
10:15 um but we'd like to start uh with the fonds cuz why not we're here in
Milwaukee where Happy Days was set so we thought no better way than to
characterize the way we feel about the program right now compared to couple
years ago these are definitely the Happy Days for us programmatically and we hope
you'll agree based on some positive developments that we're going to share
here so first among those last last year when we were in Seattle in March we
tried for the first time to interview some of you with videos they were
wonderful some of your faces are here in the room that are in these videos so if
you haven't seen them be sure to check them out we also showcased your good
work this year through our annual performance report which is not the most
exciting read but we try to Jazz it up with your fun projects so your work is
in there too and then if you want to see all the work across the land it is in
the state program report public view from
2022 and um these slides are online if you haven't already seen them and you
can link to all the things there okay and really exciting news uh
we during the pandemic asked a lot of you especially in terms of what you were
reporting into the state program report you can see from this slide that during
the arpa reporting year 2021 the amount of projects reported
effectively doubled it had already ballooned during the car's act this
should not surprise you but the happy news is that when we got back to the
basics with 2022 reporting this year we're back to a manageable size of
projects and not only um did you get back to the Benchmark year of 2019
before the pandemic you actually condensed yourselves a little so you got
even more efficient with your reporting and we actually had three more entities
represented in 2022 than we did in 2019 cuz Micronesia and palao and um the
other one oh my gosh Madison Marshall Islands thank you um have we not
represented in 2019 but we're represented in 2022 so good work
everyone we're back to the happy place where we don't have quite as much to
report in the
spr we also during the pandemic had to do some virtual site visits and that was
not our happiest time uh we are so happy that the program officers have been able
to go out in person to you the last few years and we rotate the groups of states
that we see and this is what's coming in 2025 so if you're on the slide and
you're seeing it for the first time and you're starting to panic a little don't
worry we're going to give you a lot of lead time but we like to preview it at
this conference in the fall so that when you get the materials in the winter
you're not surprised and then you can plan for a wonderful site visit in the
spring or the summer these are generally like two to three day visits um we find
them extremely valuable and we hope that you do
too how many of you were here in 2022 when those five-year plans got submitted
I know there's a handful at least maybe not as many maybe half the room maybe
even less anyway good on you that was a that was a lot of work that year but um
what I'm here to tell you is that all of us at Grants to states were here that
year and based on what we saw when the plans were coming in the door and we
were approving them and sending feedback back we thought to ourselves there are
some things we could definitely clarify to make this easier on the states the
next time around and with any government document where we ask you to do stuff it
has to go through a three-year approval cycle and we hit that Mark last year
where the Office of Management and budget uh which is our bosses they work
for the White House they have to review our stuff so we took the opportunity to
just clarify The Five-Year Plan guidelines the substance has not really
changed we just wanted to make things clearer and we took a pass at formatting
it in a little bit of a more straight forward way as well and the really good
news is that you don't even really have to think about this for another couple
of years because your next fiveyear plans aren't due until
2027 yay
all right we've been in close communication with our finance office at
imls about the administrative burden that is involved with these fund reports
called the quarterly Grant acral reports and many of you if you are not
intimately in finance may not even know what these are but your Finance people
are submitting these to us and the next report because they're quarterly is due
October 4th so it's just coming up in a few weeks we are hoping to get 100% of
the states reporting on this for October 4th so um we want to finish strong with
fiscal 24 but thereafter our finance team has agreed that they can look at a
process modification for how we calculate these acrs back at the ranch
it goes right over my head but they know exactly what they need to do with this
stuff and they said as soon as we have a chance to talk to the Auditors at imls
we can give the states a green light about how this is going to go going
forward so I can't share any details with you today but I can say it's going
to be a lighter lift that is for sure and so finish strong October 4th wait
for our announcement in the fall and we promise you a little bit of an eased
administrative burden with these reports going
forward we also have a new director of our office of Grants policy and
management and over the summer um you may not be
making payment requests through our egms system but somebody at your state is and
our form for those payments changed a little bit so the instructions on this
slide are updated from last year we shared the same slide last year but the
instructions are a little different everything's been streamlined made more
efficient and last year we said our guideline would be no more than two draw
Downs per month but in conversation with some of you you and your Finance people
and our finance people we said okay we see that there's a case here for you to
have one a week and so that has changed to some degree and if you need to make
four or five um payment requests per month we will honor
that we put a lot of thought into the next two days uh we're thinking of this
is a Back to Basics kind of year we don't have to talk about fiveyear
valuations we don't have to talk about five-year plans so we're in this sweet
spot where we can do sort of the things you always want to hear about like
allowable costs so it's coming and we are also in the wonderful year of having
already talked to you a few years about the car's ARA experience and our
evaluation team is going to share now what those findings actually look like
we are so excited to share this with you the report has not been published you're
getting the sneak peek things to come and we are so honored to have in person
and I see her standing in the back our acting imls director Cindy landram to
address all of you
yay she addressed you last year virtually but this is the first time
she's been here in person so we're super excited to have her and a number of you
States also raised your hand when we said would you be available to present
with us and you said yes I would so thank you and we will hear from you
tomorrow we're super excited about that in terms of logistics we have um
for the folks in the room a paper survey that we would like you to fill out we
take this very seriously every year we also have a URL that the virtual folks
will be able to use and we'll have a dedicated time tomorrow at the end of
the day where we will sit and say now you fill out this survey but if you have
to leave a little early in the day I just want you to know that we'll be
collecting the surveys at the registration table so as soon as you're
done with yours you just drop it off there and um we like I said we we listen
to you we try to make iterative improvements for example no Seattle
Hills this year you're welcome and we we do try to make uh we
try to make adjustments based on your preferences that we hear in the survey
so please be honest and tell us what you think
for those of you in the room we also have an in-person networking bingo card
and this is you know there's a lot of new people here we want to give you an
excuse to walk up to somebody a total stranger and say hey do you do this
thing on the bingo card so it's just a way for you to get to know each other a
little bit better and we're doing blackout Bingo like whole card has to be
filled out but if you do that you can turn it into the registration table and
if you're among the earliest of the submissions we might have a little
something for you tomorrow so incentivizing
it if you're going to participate in the gift exchange which the mentors have
lovingly put together again this year and by the way the mentors this year
also have a fabulous Mentor Banner on their name tags so they are easily
identifiable um but we have a table with gifts at the back of the room and we'd
ask you to bring those uh by the end of lunch which is 1:30
we're Reviving two things we've done in the past as well which is the
peer-to-peer appreciation wall this is for you to shout out each other there
are sticky notes at your table and pens and you can just write your little Kudos
on there and slap them on the wall and it'll be something that we revisit
tomorrow as a group uh this is something the virtual
folks can do as well you just chat in to Cindy and Laura if you've got an
appreciation you want them to record and put over on the wall and they will do
that for you same with the parking lot it's often the case that we do kind of a
flyby of our content and we don't have time for in-depth questions or questions
that are very specific to your state but we still want to hear them so you can
put them on sticky notes on the parking lot wall and we'll see if we can revisit
some of them tomorrow and if not we will take them back to the ranch and be sure
to get answers to you we have a lot of acronyms we're
going to be slinging around so if you are not super familiar with them or
didn't attend the online orientation last week we did post our handout for
that and that has a whole list of things like spr Mo Moe lsta um so they're all
there for your viewing pleasure and it wouldn't be a gr to
States conference without a theme this year we took a general inspiration from
our local we have at least three resident cheese heads at Ms so we're
super excited about this um it is sure to be our cheesiest year
yet I don't ever like to wait until the very end of the conference when
everybody's trying to get on a plane to say thank you to people so I'm going to
do a little bit of it now uh we have Meeting Planners that we contract with
for this conference we don't do this ourselves we're not capable of this
ourselves so thank God for Matt berety and for Steph
[Applause] Hines who get you these beautiful spaces
and make sure you have powder strips on your table and get you here on your
flights and do all the things that are really truly important for having an
inperson meeting and a virtual meeting Matt is currently running the zoom room
like a champ so thank you Capital meeting planning and similarly we have
just this Army of other folks helping us the
interpreters the Tex sta who I've been informed are the best in Wisconsin so
you should just know here they are the best in
Wisconsin and of course all the hotel folks that are making our stay special
including that dog dogs dogs multiple um I'm going to thank my colleagues from
Grants to States a little more profusely throughout other segments of the program
and same with our office of research and evaluation staff but I will just say
here that o is a co-sponsor of this conference uh we are jointly Partners in
this endeavor and we could not do this without them we're so
grateful I want to thank again in advance those of you that said yes I
will present tomorrow I want to thank Ben Miller for getting the Dan Dan out
uh visits together that was so cool our mentors for putting the
networking event together and all of you for just taking time away from your jobs
we know this is a SA sacrifice and we feel like it's a really important use of
your time so we're going to try to make the best of it for you but thank you for
being
here okay with that we're probably at one of those moments where you might
have questions but I'm going to say put it in the parking lot because we got to
keep moving so we're going to go right into the content of the day and if
you're looking at this going wow this sounds super boring I'm gonna try to
keep it moving I promise this is one of those interactive sessions
um but the truth is we've some of us have been waiting with baited breath for
these regulatory updates that come every so often and now is the time so we um
last fall some of the previews of Coming Attractions were unveiled and some of
you might have even responded to the public comment period about these RS
that dictate what happens in the grants arena in the federal sector and now uh
in April we were able to see what those actual changes were going to be and
we've heard that this coming change is October 1st just a few weeks from today
so it's been a long tale of stuff coming at us and our legal team and our grants
Administration team have been furiously digesting this material it is hundreds
and hundreds of pages and we said what would really be helpful to the states is
if you could just give them the most pertinent information in those hundreds
of pages that they Estates and pass through entities which is what you do
when you take our money and you redistribute it out um so that is a term
of art that you will hear more we want to know what the states and path
throughs really need to pay attention to because there's a lot in there that they
don't so that is what you're going to get in this next section and we did this
sort of version of things in 2021 when the conference was virtual some of you
may remember cam trobridge um our associate uh general counsel he did a
top 10 which we thought was a very helpful format so that's been our North
Star going forward I will say right off the bat there was so much this round
that at a certain point we're like this is not going to be a top 10 it's it's
like a 30 page handout um I'm not going to go through all 30 pages but we've
linked it for you and we're going to try to just give you a little appetizer
version of it today and dive deeper into it later in the
fall so I want to say at the outset thank you to our colleagues back at the
ranch who made this possible it was Julie belus our director of the grants
Office Camp trobridge our um acting general counsel and Santana Jackson who
is also in the office of general counsel and did a huge lift on this work and
they have allowed me to bring it to you today in the form that you're going to
see so first of all what are we talking about this set of rigs comes by a number
of different names om as I mentioned is our office of management and Government
Office of Management and budget they effectively work for the White House and
it is their set of RS that they give to all of the grant making agencies across
government including us so these are somewhat generic they are not specific
to libraries we often call it internally
the uni form guidance that's another uh title it goes by and it comes from the
code of federal regulations so it's chapter it's title two you'll often hear
us say 2 CFR 2 CFR 200 that is what we're talking about when we're talking
about the set of rags and if you're still scratching your
head because that's not familiar to you here's some plain language things that
it covers it does cover allowable costs it covers things like the unique entity
identifiers that everybody that receives federal funds has to go into sam.gov and
get it includes things like reporting the sub Awards through the ffata and
fsrs dgov system and it includes things like the
audits so as I said this is a large set of updates it's our largest since 10
years ago like our pass at the five-year guidelines what om was really trying to
do with this was clarify make it more plain language add
some uh nuances to things that were not clear and it is going into effect
October 1st however if you take nothing else away from this session I want you
to take away this nothing in your immediate Grant realm is going to change
because this will not apply until we issue the 2025 Awards and for those of
you that have been around the block you know that doesn't happen until J January
at the earliest and sometimes into the months of spring so you do have some
time and nothing that we're going to go over today is taking immediate effect
for you okay so your 24 Awards your 23 awards that are still open those are all
following the prior guidance so you have some
time we've got the handout that I previewed it's online we would very much
like you to take a look at this 30 pages sounds like a lot but it's nothing
compared to the I don't know 800 pages that om descended to us so please take a
look it is the essential crucial stuff for you and we are going to dedicate um
the November 7th Zoom meeting that is normally for lsta coordinators to just
talk shop amongst themselves but we're going to um like take that over and our
grants colleagues um that I mentioned in the office of Grants management and
policy and the office of general counsel are going to come on board and be there
in sort of an open form to answer any questions you might have so please save
that date and we will email this all out again so that everybody's aware of this
and it's it's a wide call anybody in an slaa can attend
this the um electronic code of federal regulations is also a great resource uh
not only on October 1st will it have the new guidance that is coming out but you
can go back in time and say I want to see the historic version that currently
applies to me and there is a Search tool and baby I use this all the time so I
hope that you will get familiar with this tool and start using it too and if
you want to see the sort of play-by-play revisions that OMB gave us they are
linked to this slide as well okay so how we're going to do the
next segment is um it's like pop quiz time and we have no expectation that any
of you know anything about this the Baseline is that we're all here kind of
hearing it for the first time that is okay these are just your best guesses
because we have found this is a good way to solidify the learning so it's going
to be some multiple choice questions some true or false questions and if
you're in the room you're just going to put your hands in the air like a great
Packer fan and if you're in the virtual room you're going to just chat in your
answers and we're just going to go through
about nine questions to help give you a flavor of what's changing so here we
go first question which of the following amounts in these new Rags are going to
change the definition of equipment which is currently set at
$5,000 the single audit threshold which is
$750,000 modified total direct costs for sub Awards currently
25,000 the Dom Minimus indirect cost rate currently
10% or none of the above or all of the above so those are your choices so and
don't worry if if this is a word scramble for you we're going to hit
almost every single one of these Concepts over the later part of the
conference content we will get to this stuff so who thinks the answer is
a okay got a couple takers who thinks the answer is
B oh nice our Tech team is voting okay who thinks our answer is
C who thinks it's
D how about e none of the above how about F all of the above we
have lots in the hands in the room for that and that is the answer all of those
amounts are changing equipment is probably most pertinent to you that is
going from 5,000 to 10,000 which um big threshold leap doubles it
single audit thresholds going up to a million the modified total direct costs
for sub Awards up to 50,000 and the DI Minimus indirect cost rate which is
something your subrecipients are eligible for is going up to 15% so all
of these are changing but not until your 25 Grand
Awards okay next question true or false I am aless prior approval for equipment
will no longer be required so say you want a book bike maybe a Harley-Davidson
from up the road in Milwaukee will you have to write to imls and say I want to
purchase this Harley-Davidson here's how much it costs so who thinks this is true
you would no longer have to ask us for permission it's there's a Believer we've
got some hopeful believers who thinks this is
false there's a lot of hands in the room for the fall and sad faces um that is
the answer it is false you're still going to need to submit prior approval
requests the good news is the thresholds going up so perhaps you won't submit as
many of them and um you submit those through egms
reach for you and your subrecipients key Point okay next
question true or false cyber security is a new requirement under internal
controls because we all need need a good defense like the Packers with our cyber
security apparatuses so who thinks um true this is going to be a new
requirement hands in the air there's quite a few hands quite a few hands who
thinks this is false I actually uh there's a Believer I
know all of this is like oh if only okay the actual answer it is true so you will
need to make sure that cyber security is somehow Incorporated in your current
policies for internal controls but the Silver Lining here is that om
specifically called it out as an allowable cost so you can use Grant
dollars to um defay this next
question okay so the OM Office of Management and budget clarified that
individuals attending trainings or conferences and key Point those who are
not responsible for in implementing the award but if they're traveling to
conferences they can receive per DM a b temporary dependent care costs C alcohol
paid for with federal funds D only a and b or e none of the
above who thinks it's a okay who thinks it's
B who thinks it's c a Believer or
two who thinks it's D only A and B quite a few hands for that one who thinks it's
e none of the above couple takers okay the actual
answer is only a and b so prum may not be surprising to you because conference
attendees can receive pums temporary dependent care costs is an exciting
development we've been hearing for years that this would be helpful and it was
never really spelled out in the R so now it is um and the people that would be
eligible for this there's some examples of those kinds of people on the slides
conference attendees might be this flavor that you most often get um so
take note okay question five there's a new
priority to purchase projects products and services that a can be reused
refurbished or recycled B are biobased C are energy and water efficient D all of
the above or E none of the above who thinks it's
a who thinks it's B who thinks it's C I'm going rapidly
because there's no hands who thinks it's D many more hands who thinks it's e none
of the above well y'all are right it is all of
the above so the language around this is to the greatest extent practicable and
consistent with law so this is not a you know you shall only purchase these
things but please take note that this is a priority and it is for the good of the
planet so we want all the Recycled sustainable biobased things to be part
of our
repertoire okay question six true or false om added a requirement that
employees of recipients and subrecipients be informed of
whistleblower rights and protections in writing this is if you see something say
something this is the you know you're going to be protected there's not going
to be reprisals um so this is a true or false question who thinks it's
true some hands in the air who thinks it's
false I see no hands it is in fact true although whistleblower protections
have been already invoked in the regs and that that is not not super new the
idea that you have to have something in writing is a new call out so this will
be something that if you don't have it already you'll want to figure out a way
to incorporate it I'm not sure it has to be long it just has to be in
writing okay question seven om clarified that unique entity identifiers or UEI
must be obtained for a subrecipients B second tier
subrecipients C contractors D all of the above or E none
of the above and I just want to say the image on this slide is the Milwaukee
Tools contractor and those folks are in the building we they have a conference
right now which I think is wild so if you see the red shirt people that's
them um who thinks it's a just subrecipient s who thinks it's B
just sub tiers subrecipients no hands for that one who thinks it's C
contractors D all of the above quite a few hands e none of the
above okay well the answer is a you only have to get these numbers now for
subrecipients and this was another very confusing thing that some people had
asked like oh my gosh do I have to get these numbers for my contractors well om
has definitively put down in writing no you do not and if you subgrant and then
your subrecipients sort of do something with the money once again they don't
have to get UEI for those people either um and the process is a little onerous
but they don't have to get a full registration just as a reminder there is
kind of a shortcut version to this to obtain a UEI in sam.gov okay
true or false om clarified that if a potential
subrecipient is excluded or disqualified from receiving federal funds the
responsibility rests on them to disclose it to you the past through entity who
thinks this is [Music]
true a few tentative hands who thinks this is
false few more hands well I'm sad to say this is false
the responsibility rests on you as the past throughs to do this due diligence
and om is now specifying that in writing so a possible verification method for
this is just using the search function in sam.gov it's something that we
already do at imls and some of you may already do it yourselves um and that
would flag with an excluded Mark of shame that this entity shall not
receive federal funds so so you have tools that your disposal for
this okay question nine om added a certification statement for
subrecipients that must be submitted when they a apply for funds from you B
request payments from you C submit final reports to you d all of the above or E
none of the above so who thinks it's a applying for
funds C hand requesting payment B couple of
hands C submitting final Financial reports more hands D all of the
above some tentative hands e none of the above
okay the answer is D all of the above this is the statement my friends so if
you are not um incorporating this already in any way know that this is
going to have to be a new part of your process that when people are applying
for funds requesting funds and submitting reports to you they need to
certify on this statement every single
time all right we're coming to the end here that was
just the like quick highlevel digest of things to come but you have an on-ramp
just like this lovely Milwaukee skyline of your uh this is not happening until
we issue your fiscal 25 Awards so if you need to go back to the ranch huddle with
your people get some stuff put down in writing you've got the time and remember
that we're going to have that open Forum on no November 7th so if you start to
look through the handout that they put together for you and decide oo there's
some things that we didn't cover in that pop quiz format I want to know more
about that um this is the place to bring all your questions and
clarifications uh we've got the ecfr we've got the Federal Register notice
and you've got a ton of resources at your disposal including your wonderful
program officers so as you start to have questions about this please let us know
know we want to be in dialogue with you about this we want to help you be
resources to you we know this is a big change but that you were all up for it
and that you um many of you have just wonderful internal controls and policies
and procedures already so hopefully this will not represent a huge huge
lift with that we're just a few minutes before the break I'm going to see
because we have a few minutes was there anything in content that you immediately
had a question about we do have a floating mic any like initial
clarifications otherwise we can we can say parking lot is open for
business yes good job virtual folks thanks for
playing along
okay is there another oh there is a hand we have a hand from
Janette quick question about the cyber security requirement that does apply to
sub grantees correct I'm going to go back to that slide and see what it
reads uh I think it's your internal controls as the
SLA I could tell you what my interpretation is I almost want to have
our legal and grants people back me up my strong suspicion is that is you that
is you the SLA not so much your subrecipients that would be wonderful if
that was the answer we'll see if we can get a firmer answer on that thanks
Janette and then asking for friends so the family uh stip the family care
stipended or whatever reimbursement not for pets
right I'm not sure I even heard that full question what was the first part of
it so um the the new uh financial support when you travel to the
conference oh yes that was um that was also my interpretation of it I think
that's something let's ask our our legal colleagues about um if you are receiving
the money and the ones organizing the conference then I think no you would not
be eligible for the dependent care that's come through with this um
hopefully you have other sorry I'm not finding that slide at the moment
hopefully you have other ways of compensating yourself like through
salary support report through um incidentals but let's be sure to clar oh
there it is let's be sure to clarify this one because I also am interpreting
this that most of you in the room as the SLA organizers of your conferences would
not be receiving these
benefits oh Pets As dependent care oh thank you I'm really having trouble
hearing apparently okay um we can also clarify
what dependent care means in that open Forum how about
that okay well I want to make sure you all get to break you have earned it um
and we have a 90minut session coming up for one of the things that you all ask
us to help you with all the time so this is the year every year we look at your
conference feedback and see topics I would have liked to seen covered in
allowable cost shows up uh like I said we can only do this about once every 5
years and I'm so excited about the thought and creativity that the program
officers put into this session to make it fun and
engaging um this also gives me a chance to introduce our three wonderful amazing
program officers at imls with portfolios of States Dennis Cindy and Madison
hey they each approach their work in slightly different ways but they're
constantly in communication with each other so that we know that the messaging
is consistent across them that is no small feet that takes a lot a lot of
work and they do it so well they're a complete joy to work with everybody at
imls tells me God I love your team they're so fun and I'm telling you the
nucleus of that is like standing up here at the stage right now this is it this
is this is the Fun Factory right here uh we know that some of you
speaking of fun um there's a disparaging phase phrase that goes around that we
have to be the fun police and we always have to tell people no and we know that
that gets put on you and it gets put on us too but if ever there were uh Grant
police that could still bring the fun it's right here so I'm really excited
that um they're getting to present this topic which is the fun police topic if
you didn't know um this is what you can and cannot do and sometimes it's hard
but um I want to particularly acknowledge Madison BS for putting this
presentation set of slides together and Distilling it and then getting our
colleagues on board it's a lot of work so with that our program
officers thank you Terry thank you Terry for that great introduction and yes this
is a Evergreen topic that we try to cover uh as much as we can there's
always questions coming in to us as program officers and and we want to uh
have the most fun we can in this session so we realized this is an hour and a
half full of a lot of information that we're going to be throwing at you so we
do have some time uh about halfway through to regroup have you guys Talk
Amongst yourselves and ask ask questions uh so keep that in mind as we're going
through
this all right so the the basic overview of the session is we're first going to
do a refresher on the legislation and regulations uh we have that imls statute
that established us as an agency and then we will go through the 2 CFR part
200 uh general cost principles the the session that Terry mentioned previously
on the details of those um we'll then discuss some common unallowable costs
and we've developed some scenarios to show you how we typically see those
coming in um then we have our trusty framework for justifying a certain cost
that we want to pass on to you then we'll talk about direct costs versus
indirect costs and finally other considerations to make when you're
trying to figure out if a cost is reasonable and necessary for a certain
project so first we have the order of precedent
in the laws that govern our work the first is the US Constitution and the
second is those uh federal laws the 20 us code 9101 which is the statute as I
said established us as an agency uh that includes the library
services and Technology act or lsta uh that also includes two CFR 200
uniform grants guidance and then after those federal regulations and laws we
have state laws that you will want to be aware of when you're doing your work and
note that the federal laws do pre uh precede the state
laws so now I'm going to get into the federal federal laws uh first so the
museum service and Technology act uh is one of two pieces of Congressional
legislation that is required for us uh to make Awards to you the second part of
that is uh the legislation that is the annual appropriation that happens every
year and decides how much money we can grant out each
year although it's not outlined here there are other pieces of congressional
legislation that affect your work those are things like uh National policy
requirements so non-discrimination standards environmental requirements and
those are always uh compiled in the annual grant assurances that your
authorized official or state librarian signs every single time we issue an
award uh the other legislation that Congress passes for us uh and this could
happen at any time uh that affects our work are things like the national museum
of African-American history and culture Act of some special initiatives that
come through Congress that one in particular not only established the
museum uh the smithonian museum on the mall but it also established a grant
program that imls runs so with with each new congress come some new priorities
that may affect our work then we have the regulations that
are not done by Congress as Terry mentioned we have the Office of
Management and budget that effective comes from the president um and they are
responsible for those uniform Grant guidance um code of federal federal
regulations Toc far apart 200 so many names um these are regulations that all
federal grants have to follow so it doesn't matter if the money is being
used by a museum or a library anyone utilizing federal funds has to follow uh
the uniform grants guidance and Dennis is going to talk about the grants
guidance in a few minutes um so I'm I'm going to continue with the statute um
the statute does have definitions uh for these terms that are
listed on the slides now note that these these definitions are not strictly
aligned with eligibility uh States at what the statute States is um States you
slas determine eligibility for your Grant
programs uh and you know we remember that that the federal laws preclude the
state laws so we are officially we the federal
government is is officially delegating that eligibility determination to
you now uh because imls statute defines state to include the territories the
freely Associated States and Washington DC uh we actually give out 59 annual
awards every year so even though some of those aren't states in the official St
sense when it comes to the statute we consider them all
states so we have these uh 12 lsta purposes and priorities uh that broadly
cover Library services and basically outline how the grant funds should be
used there are also eight additional ones for the uh lsta Pro the grant EST
States program um these are things that you should be aware of when you're
utilizing our funding like resource sharing Library Workforce prioritizing
underserved audiences but you probably don't think about these very much and
that's okay because once every five years when you do your fiveyear plan we
require you to crosswalk these priorities to your goals so at any given
moment you are what when you when we connect you to the goals when you're
connecting to the goals you are fulfilling the purposes and priorities
of
lsta so uh with the statute there's there's other practical implications of
it um as I mentioned everything funded with lsta must come back to your
Five-Year Plan if you can't connect it to your fiveyear plan it is unallowable
construction as we all know unfortunately is unallowable and what
does that mean exactly it means no tearing down walls no laying fire or
pouring concrete uh no installing permanent structures if you ask yourself
could I move it if I needed to and the answer is no it's probably
unallowable um and we've we've adjusted the definition of how we of how we
interpret uh construction over the years um and we've allowed some things um so
uh adjusting HVAC units um has uh become an allowable cost recently um although
if you have an extensive installation you probably want to separate the
installation costs and not pay for those with federal funds and also not include
uh those as match costs um other things that could could border on uh
interpreting as construction could be privacy pod installation bookmobile
retrofits hearing Loop wiring self-service lockers those are things
that are allowable in the program we do not consider those Construction
ction also finally you must comply with the children's internet protection act
which means if you're using lsta funds to purchase materials that have access
to the internet there must be a filter um on that
internet and finally we have state laws uh besides the federal laws that I just
talked about you probably have your own laws in your state that governs your
life Library work this is an example of laws in this great state of Ohio what's
up Ohio um and they pertain to libraries and and you want to be mindful of those
as you're developing and making Awards on your program um sometimes we'll see
best practices that the state has designated uh in addition to the federal
uh regulations and LST coordinators will come to us with about maybe a particular
unallowable cost that they see in their handbook or maybe a certain eligibility
requirement and uh ask us if that's a state law or a federal law and sometimes
it is a state law um so it's good to know the difference of of where the the
regulations and the best practices are coming
from now we have our first scenario on Grant eligibility
okay go hopefully this is working oh great I am the lsta coordinator in the
State of East Asiago the West cheiter Middle School
library wants to know if they are eligible for Grant funds mainly they
need funds to replace the
carpet that's a great question LST coordinator based on the legislation it
is up to you as the S laa of eago to determine that the Middle School library
is generally eligible for LST funds if they consider if you consider a school
library a library and a priority you could fund them however replacing carpet
is not a generally allowable cost with that type of project uh is is very
important for a library it sounds like construction and so based on the two CFR
200 requirements uh and the IMs statute that is
unallowable uh funds must be programmatic in nature and connect back
to your five fiveyear plan thank you oh hey Madison while
while I have you while you're here I work at the SLA in the state of New
swissa you know that because you're my program officer there is a nonprofit
that promotes early literacy in my community of Cam Bear County
can I fund this organization with an lsta sub
award this is a great question and it can get a little bit of a slippery slope
yes slas can determine eligibility and could say a nonprofit could receive imls
funds but you have to make sure that their work is related to libraries and
connects to your goals in your Five-Year Plan their case could be strengthened if
they work with a library as a partner you could fund their project thanks so
much let
see okay I'm a program officer again just to keep it clear and I'm going to
talk about um the 2 CFR 200 and I hope that
by the time by the time we finish the conference um that everybody will have
no confusion as to what to CFR means to CFR 200 code of f Federal Regulations um
I can say personally doing this now for eight
years I'm finally like okay yes I I understand that they are vital and
living and helpful to refer to and not nearly as intimidating as I once thought
you just have to read it again and again and again and that's what we'll do here
we'll talk about it again and again and again so as we've discussed um for a
good deal of this morning in various presentations um 2 CFR part 200
specifically again is not specific to Grants to states its requirements for
all federal grants um and it again the uniform guidance is there to establish
those requirements across the board consistently related to allowable costs
and um audit requirements if some of you have experienced site visits through us
a lot of things that we will say will be you know we want to help you be as audit
proof as possible this is kind of where that fits in um and again the guiding
principle for the um 2 CFR in this area is is the cost reasonable and necessary
I'm sure you have heard from us in several email responses those terms
they're probably not uh foreign to you but this is where this comes from um and
again it's this is an important one and sometimes can be easily forgotten is
that the this guidance um governs both the State Library funds to lsta and
whatever you record and report as match um so those principles are across the
board and um it also includes requirements for pass through entities
which are again as as Terry mentioned that is the kind of official term for
your role as a State library and also as Terry mentioned uh the updates will take
effect October 1 but not until your um 2025 Awards um are awarded to
you so again it breaks down I just want to show you that um clip or screenshot
of how um tcfr 200 is broken down and I cannot recommend the ecfr enough it
makes it a lot less intimidating to go through a huge PDF and instead just kind
of click on the areas that are of direct relevance to you in the in any given
moment um and as you can see it breaks it down in these in these areas we don't
have to I don't have to read them to you you can see them um and I just want to
also point out the link there to the fact that it is searchable so if you
don't know where to click um just searching a a term they might might be
broken out in a specific allowable cost category there under cost principles
specifically uh yes so uh more statute uh reference there but this is basically
all under allowability so um and this is where we get our lovely um terms of
necessary and reason able um it's me under those considerations to make sure
that their consistent uh consistency is key for your federal and your
non-federal activities um they expect that you follow generally accepted
accounting principles uh so they don't go into what those are they kind of
assume that you are following them in accordance with the allowability element
um and not to be used for matching requirements for other Federal Awards so
you can't use LST ta funds as a maging requirement for another Federal program
there are very few exceptions very few so just assume that you can't do that
unless otherwise like it's screaming out at you that you can um adequate
documentation is critical um I think as you'll see throughout the day and in our
you know beautifully crafted scenarios that we have written for all of you that
uh there is definitely case-by casee Bas bases with a lot of allowability and
what really tips it over more often the not into allowability is how well you're
able to document your justification um that kind of goes feeds back into that
audit proof territory where it's like this may on the surface look like it's
not allowable but because of all of these well documented reasons it is um
and again this is you know a given but always good to be reminded of that they
have to be incurred incurred during the approved budget period um with the
exception of close out costs so um I'm going to go through some
of the main categories of common unallowable costs and then we have some
scenarios to kind of bring them to life um and I'm just realizing now because I
have a few I might not be jumping back and forth um so I think I need your yeah
just prep preparing actually I'm a PO thank you thank you um behind the
curtain stuff you know thank you so much uh but first under entertainment uh as a
general principal no parties with lsta funds I you know we we love a party but
just not funded with lsta funds uh concerts or alcohol um and if it does
not have an educational component it's a no so I know probably under this um well
there's no you can't do a bourbon educational tasting uh no alcohol kind
of supersedes the education there I know that's where my brain went I was like oh
I can learn uh with alcohol but no it's a little dicey so we just don't touch at
all um but with the concerts you can you can get into a place where again well
documented and well communicated where it may have a justifiable educational
component so let's get into one of our scenarios related to
entertainment I work at the slaa in the state of old
gorgona there was an end of summer reading program event at the public
library and they were awarded a subgrant from us for it they had various types of
programming and this included a story time with snacks a Charlie cart
demonstration and they hired the famous local POC band The Kenosha kickers I'm
sure you all know them H king of thewest all this showed up in their final report
to me and I just put it in the spr is that
okay thanks so much for your your openness Madison or not Madison LST
coordinator um we do have a few issues here so let's just let's spend some time
breaking those down first of all with the activities uh the hiring of the
Kenosha kickers unfortunately was unallowable because they were purely
entertainment uh the story time is programmatically sound but the snack
would have to serve a programmatic purpose in order it to be
allowable and it sounds like it was not so thank you for letting me know
and while the Charlie cart does provide food in that case it's a needed material
in the program so that would be considered an allowable cost great
job then we have an issue of internal controls and you know I know that we
have a ongoing professional relationship so I feel comfortable telling you areas
of improvement and and I'm I'm grateful for all all of that we have built H
professionally I can tell you up upfront about this but uh if you as the State
Library activities like a band in the project planned and in the final report
and did not flag the issue that unfortunately is an indicator of a lack
of your internal monitoring of Grant Management which is a requirement based
on 2 CFR 200 we we bring it we bring it direct you know because that's just how
we roll but it's important that you monitor how your funds are being spent
so you could be asked to return those funds to imls but again please keep
bringing these to me don't don't hide from me moving forward
please Dennis yes I'm still working at East Asiago State Library than the marap
pon Regional Library receives a Suba warb from us and they want to do a
two-day training on and continuing ed workshop for staff they're located in a
rural area so lunch was provided in the workshop is that okay yes uh thank you
Cindy uh we generally cite Workshop lunches as allowable if there is
relevant work being done through the time of lunch which we affectionately
call a working lunch you mentioned that this is also in a rural area so these
areas are often food deserts and it is difficult to travel during a workshop to
get food so making the case for providing lunch is strengthened by the
fact that you're in a rural area and that speaks to the adequate
documentation that we discussed earlier thanks so much Cindy keep holding it
down in eago all
right now next category of allowability is drum roll please General advertising
so this is a common unallowable cost that we see and rightfully so why
wouldn't you want to advertise things but there under lsta and under the code
of federal regulations there's um no General advertising or marketing for the
library allowed however you can advertise an lsta funded service but it
should be um reported as such with the related project costs in the spr so we'd
be able to expect to kind of follow the money if you will the paper trail of in
the spr you have this one project and we can see how the marketing costs were
tied specifically to um marketing that particular project and so um as with
several of our of these slides um for future reference we have links to these
specific areas if you wanted to dig a little more deeply into
that all right here we go so the Mars Capone Regional Library came
back to me with another project they are using imls funds to put up
Billboards to promote the library and where it is located is this allowable um
okay let's let's get into this show while it is important to let the
community in Maser Pony know where your library is and its services there is
nothing specifically funded with I LSA dollars here so according to CFR 200
you cannot use imls funds to put up these Billboards but uh so I encouraged
you to communicate that back to Maser Pony we'll do okay thanks well I have a
question in the great state of old
gorgona we use imist funds for the Statewide Library catalog uh we also use
imess funds to print bookmarks that promote this service as well as the
dolly partan Imagination Library is that allowable so close so close Old Gore
gonzola they'll get it one of these days for sure so because the state catalog is
lsta funded you can use funds to promote that service and a bookmark would be
acceptable however the dolly part and Imagination Library is not funded with
lsta so you would need to leave that off the bookmark just to again to be sure to
look at the source of the funding make sure to keep it separate thanks so much
program Officer Dennis oh yeah I I do have another question one of my sub
awardees is funding Outreach to a specific Community those who are
learning English have limited English or who have
limited English proficiency they plan to put out mailers in targeted
neighborhoods is this allowable thanks so much for that question you're so
welcome that sounds great I'm very excited for this uh sub award uh if that
is related back to your goals in the fiveyear plan which as Madison mentioned
earlier those goals already track to the LSA purposes and priorities so they
already kind of connected um then it is generally allowable and there's also
specifically in the lsda purposes and priorities a focus on reaching the
underserved so because that is a targeted population and can be tied to a
specific project that is generally allowable thank you thank you
Cindy next advocacy a common unallowable cost we never hear about this at all uh
but um yes so to break it down the the kind of highlights of what is not
allowable under this area I know that that word advocacy automatically kind of
puts the fear of God in people but more specifically what is involved in that is
uh no funds that go toward lobbying or lawmakers or contributing to political
campaigns that can obviously be kind of dicey um no funds toward fundraising
activities um and no direct costs toward applying for other grants um that would
only be under indirect costs uh not direct costs and um there is some um
availability or allowability under General Grant writing workshops um
because that's more a general and it's more focused on professional development
of like professional skills but not here's how here's a five-step program of
reaching this specific Senator and asking for this specific amount of money
it's entirely different from here's just proposal writing 101 or communication
skills in general
all
right well in Old gorgona we have given out a sub awward to a public library and
they are hosting the annual trustee training uh We've hired lever and
Shirley's Library organization to do the training they're really well recommended
and it turned out that they have a section on advocacy in the trustee
training what do I do with that thanks so much for letting me know so we can
work this out together truste training is allowable as it is building capacity
but to CFR 2000 designates advocacy as outright unallowable this is a federal
law so we can't make any exceptions in this instance you will need to have
documentation that shows that the training was pro-rated so no imls funds
were used for the advocacy section in the case of an audit it is important
that this documentation is clear and secondly your spr report should omit any
mention of advocacy please and thank you program Officer Dennis yes the the
friends group at marscapone Metro Regional Library wants to put on an
event and charge money as a fundraiser for the library can imls funds be used
for a speaker for the event oh M good old Mas Pony I am appreciate their
enterprising spirit because they've really been cranking out a lot of s I
know um while speaker fees are generally allowable um the context of this
particular speaker the purpose of the speaker is primarily for fundraising it
sounds like so it does not serve a programmatic purpose beyond that so that
would be considered unallowable so thank you for bringing it to my attention
thank you all right so and this is some other not big topic areas but some maybe
like a grab bag of unallowable costs um that we see occasionally that would be
helpful to point out to you costs associated with starting a new
organization um personal professional memberships are not allowed
institutional memberships are allowable but not personal ones um bad debts or
funds for services that were not rendered are not
allowable um video surveillance equipment from certain companies and I
do believe we get into that a little bit more later that sounds very for boing
and didn't intend for that to be but um uh look at sam.gov basically um and
furniture that doesn't have any programmatic purpose um and adding to
endowments uh we cannot fund um you never know when that may come across
your desk so it's good to know that you can't uh and any activities that are
unrelated to our lsta purposes and priorities all right so we have brought
back the framework for justifying a certain cost lost and if you have been I
guess if you were on this side of the room you may remember um the debut of
this framework in Denver which was um a pile of rocks and because of rock
climbing and rocks was the theme at the time so we've graduated to a a cheese
framework to keep it relevant and so um but essentially the principles are still
there you want to start out with the foundation which is of course whatever
the award language is indicating and our the annual guidance that is signed off
on every year with your award um and of course those wonderful pieces of
legislation we've touched on a little bit today and then building off of that
is more specific areas like our gr States manual which I can't emphasize
enough we do keep updated and accurate some of the dates on the documents may
look old but they are still current and relevant so you can rely on them um
existing cases and prior approval from us is a great um we're talking about
like justifying and documentation of allowability and then finally at the
very top of that cheese is your rationale that helps that you will
basically use all the previous components to build and to document
effectively so now we're going to take a
recombobulation breather in honor of um the uh airport that has a designated
recombobulation area which we're very thrilled about and so um yeah we just
want to spend oh this is you Sandy it's all
good um take about five or 10 minutes at your tables just to talk about some of
your impressions any questions that you have maybe experienced um practically
any um things that you might be confused about that we discussed and then we'll
kind of uh ask for some of your uh Impressions with the volunteers from the
table to share out
and
y wonderful all right we're gonna start which side of the room should we start
on Emily we'll put you to work first you can start okay start over here do we
have any questions on the I think this is the south end of
the room someone who just took a class on
Advanced cost principles for two CFR 200 I have a million questions but this is
not a training for me that's why you're here um any examples that you guys came
up with that you want to
share I got
one home field advantage no I was I was I I'll I'll ask a question uh and I
don't know the answer to this uh because I've never had a building program and
I'd love to uh but would that be eligible for Grant uh for match funding
uh if it's true construction like a a state funded program that is just for
construction is that eligible for match for LSA or not it is not eligible for
match that's good news yes that's that's a great reminder that all of the cost
principles and allowable cost information applies to both lsta funds
and your matching funds so if you're if you have a construction program and I
think some states actually do do have funds use State funds for construction
you can include that in your match we had some of the same questions
about furniture and also sometimes the slippery slope with
cslp and what is a Hands-On learning versus a prize in a giveaway so we just
kind of went through those things together
yeah
soe is so complicated complicated that's
day two yeah we talk aboute tomorrow um basically it probably would not count in
Moe because youre has to be stable cost categories so if it's in if it's
something uh that is in a stable cost category that contributes to library
Services then
yes so complicated I that that big old Terry is reaching for the microphone I
can see her yeah there is exception C
conru
off we were going to foot race tomorrow but I
win so we know that we can't use funding for
advocacy but what if we call it Outreach how to do Outreach to your mayor to help
solidify the
library well um I would say like end end the sentence
earlier um you know and I don't even even like a but where's the fine line
where where is the fine line you know we get questions all the time from
directors you know how to go talk to your funders and explain the importance
you're not necessarily asking for money and you are teaching them same
question would apply to for instance we paid ala for the trustee
training right so if they log in there's lots of sessions to choose from that's
going to be one any open Forum that we're paying for subscriptions for if
they log in advocate's probably going to be a choice in a lot of those different
things we're paying a subscription for the whole thing so right and it's
happening I think yeah I think that is of minimal concern because there is so
much other you you can't you can't parse that out it's like a huge subscription
and there's so many other things that are allowable programming and good
education and you know um contined education for your staff um I think I
think if you what you could do is have have programming so have have some
programs that maybe to a targeted audience
um and maybe your mayor just observes yeah right and also too there's a
difference between something that is extremely intentionally like these are
your elected officials this is the website where you can reach out to them
here are their AIDS this is what they like to hear Etc and so forth and this
is communication skills how to tell your story as a librarian communicating value
those are just good skills from like a a professional development
perspec if in the process the elected officials learn that they need to give
more money to continue these great skills that's just the bonus one more
quick thing I want to place Brenda here let's go back to the bookmark for a
quick quick second if it's half Dolly Parton and
half lsta program can you 5050 it well I was thinking about what you're
mentioning in there about the pro rating and I do wonder if once again if it's
documented that the cost is sort of um split to kind of recognize that you're
paying for the portion that um is being promoted and I again this is why these
case-by case scenarios are very much that because if it was this is really
granular but if you had the lsta funded service on one side of the bookmark
right it's very clear that that's communicating that this is what was
funded and the Dolly Parton's on the other side and it's like funded entirely
separately um that document ation that that cheese if you will um you could you
could make a strong case as long as you're really above board with this is
what we these are the efforts that we made to delineate the
costs right so I have a I'm sorry and and you know what would an auditor say
like like I guess like try try to look at it through the eyes an auditor like
would they find that fishy um some Auditors as some of you know are really
nitpicky uh but so it's it is good to have that
documentation so we have in that case um a library who prints an annual or
quarterly event thing but the imls portion takes up about eight pages
and what they do is they take out those pages and prate it for whatever the 64
pages of and prate just that amount and documents that it's these are the imls
portions is that that would pass must for me yeah
good it's very clear
yeah good questions yes this outside of the room is killing
it so if you're printing The Bookmark though don't you still want
acknowledgements on that bookmark yeah yeah and I always argue
how large are those acknowledgements going to be it's going to be a little
tiny logo that you need like a magnifying glass for I could be a stem
activity you know uh fine the logo but I think and correct me if I'm wrong the
grante communications kit that is for like anybody who receives funds they
have those sort of guidelines especially like as small as you can go from a
recommend recommend recommended uh guideline and I think
there's even like various levels of wordiness for just describing it um and
I think there's some like adaptability there based on what you're working with
I think yeah I keep I'm leaning very heavily on all we do have an office of
communications yeah some of the language is much more succinct so if you have a
very small space that could be more user friendly I suppose yeah absolutely
like it we like it we like
it
yep homework help you know tutor.com on I95 or
something great
questions all right okay right you want to pass me the clicker and we'll get
started yes we have more we have more information to more scenarios there's
more content coming this way coming at you all right all right how do I do this
the green the Big Green okay great where do I it I guess there okay
fantastic so the two CFR part 200 also covers direct and indirect costs for the
grants to States program the 4% administrative costs are an example of
indirect costs and your sub subrecipients might also request
indirect costs these distinctions are super important um and and so important
that our legal team our legal colleagues helped us put together a memo about it
uh that we reference all the time and it's linked in this
slide LSA has a 4% administrative cap for slas hopefully this is familiar to
you um the FI um and there's no indirect cap for subrecipients but be mindful of
things like all facilities related costs incurred at the state level office or
other furniture that doesn't directly relate to a program and phone lines you
can include them in the 4% but that's the cap um any Sub sub awardees using
the DI Minimus rate should calculate based on the
mtdc and those exclude equipment rental costs tuition remission scholarships and
fellowships and participant support costs Etc there's obviously some links
in here that you can go to for additional
information and we'll talk about it tomorrow as well um and these are
unallowable as direct costs because they aren't contributing to a specific
project huge shout out to Madison for creating this gorgeous tree the cost
decision tree this is all her um you have this um in your is one of a handout
um you should have it as a link as well Madison made up this cost decision to
help you us um determine when imls funds can be used and if costs costs can be
counted as match it's just gorgeous by the way we love
it so we wanted to contextualize this this decision tree so we can you and so
we're going to use some examples again West chiter public library has a
community memory project where they allow Community organizations and
individuals to digitize
documents they would like to purchase a scanner is it a direct
cost oh no I this is in theory what we're trying to do here yeah use the
pointer it's not working it's not working
no okay we're gonna we're going to point to
yesp I'm not tall enough to we're going to point to yes it's a
direct cost yes yes it is okay great is the scanner allowable yes are you using
federal funds to purchase a said scanner yes you may use federal funds
for this project and
purchase okay oh thank you folks you're so you're so
adaptable um another scenario Library staff training for for training and
monitoring Patron use using the scanner is the staff training cost a direct
cost yes see Dennis has figured it
out or you can flip off the accountable allowable cost is it allowable yes but
you have to prate their time are you using federal funds no so you can use
this as match
[Music] oh okay
great oh my goodness West Chaser public library has a community memory project
where Community organizations oh did I print those twice
I think I did is it one more
okay uh is it the grant writing okay great uh the grant writing
uh West public library has a has a project where staff would like to learn
how to write better grants who wants to do that so is it's it's not quite in
there is it on the back okay
aha can you help yes yeah so the same Library who's doing a
this community memory project they're having a special event
called a community adct and it's really just a social event where they have
coffee and
treats is it a direct cost sure is it an allowable cost
no so you cannot
use you cannot use federal funds and you cannot use
match thank you
yeah now we're on to indirect costs
okay my slides are all mixed up okay so again the West cheer public
library has a community memory project where they allow Community organizations
and individuals to digitize projects digitize
documents um potential indirect cost electricity for the climate control and
scanner use is it a direct cost no it is not is it allowable
yes it is are you using federal funds
no if it's paid for by the sub awarde it may be counted as
match that is far less fun Madison then your middle finger being used as
pointing to the squares by the way um how about an SLA administrative site
visit to West cheiter PL to see how the Project's going is it a direct
cost no is it allowable sure is are you using federal
funds yeah you are you may use federal funds for this and you can count it
toward the 4
per. yep there's a cap on that
great thank you thank you both for vaning and thank you all for your
patience with [Applause]
me oh great okay great all right some other
considerations um for related to project dates
um they may affect whether something is allowable or not um so here we go some
costs uh dated before the project Period start date are unallowable materials and
equipment must be ordered and delivered within the grant period I just had this
question I get this question at least once a month it's a big one um
liquidations of cost must may occur up to 120 days after the award period is
over also we get that quite frequently Grant period extensions especially due
to unspent funds are generally not allowed generally not allowed okay just
gonna say that on behalf of my boss okay okay so we do have another scenario this
is is the type of scenario that I'm a little bit more comfortable with
so great all right oh hi program officer Cindy yes uh the cam Bear County Public
Library needs a bookmobile and they want to use imls funds to do so but since the
pandemic the wait for vehicles has been very long and there is a chance it won't
arrive by the end of the grant period what should they do I'm so glad you came
to me with this question when you did I thought of you first I I so appreciate
that you are correct about the vehicle or any materials for any project that
they must be delivered before the end of the grant period one option is to split
the project over two Grant periods having a planning period for when it
comes to researching the bookmobile and then the next Grant period for ordering
however please know that you are taking a
risk with this model as future lsda funds are never officially guaranteed if
you prefer to be risk averse I do find find another source of funding sir thank
you so much you're so welcome I think I'm going to do that
thanks I'm back as the LST coordinator in the great state of old
gorgona we have a we have a Statewide project where we purchase ebooks using a
Content credit model and they have we have to P purchase credits in
advance uh can I uh purchase these content
credits uh and just like have them to use whenever or do they have to be spent
by the end of the grant period this is a great question and we do get it quite a
bit these content credits must be used before the end of the grant period in
which they were purchased purchasing the credits and
selecting the content later is
unallowable thank you
I missed that sorry
everybody there's a lot going on
shuffling okay other considerations salaries and benefits
um hours worked must be prated to the project and they generally um generally
um cannot cover incentives or bonuses um volunteer hours can be converted to in
kind match um and incentives and bonuses
would have to be justified as necessary in keeping with the use of non-federal
funds for similar compensation and part of a plan established before Services
were
rendered related to program income these are some questions you can ask does your
project charge someone money um earned funds must generally go back into the
project and must be pre-approved by your program officer so again this goes back
to the old adage of ask questions early do not wait we always want to hear from
you always
always required certifications the CTS apply to all of your lsda funded
projects they require adherence to non-discrimination they prohibit using
your position for personal gain and a full set of certifications are signed at
the time of a new Five-Year Plan and at the onboarding of a new authorized
certifying official annual CTS are signed at the time of the award if you
happen to have an interim or acting authorized certifying official we do not
need a full set of CTS from them which require the signature of the state's
attorney general or the equivalent um if there are questions
there is a recorded webinar on the State gron state's manual called I signed my
name what does it mean uh that our general
councel conducted that may be helpful to
review and as a pass through agency if you are making sub Awards there is a
required documentation risk assessment and monitoring um you will still have
gray areas that is why we're here uh we always always always want to hear from
you um and it's we encourage questions especially early on in the project when
things can still be shifted around um and more of these things will be covered
in our monitoring session tomorrow that's
right that concludes allowable costs y now we're open for questions any and
all desk Mindy has one back here um I have a question and uh by the
way as a like heads up I I want you to say no
so that's so helpful um with regard to bonuses and incentives um is longevity
pay considered in that bonus incentive I think we would have to
have a conversation okay about that we can't
give a full yes or no on it I'll call Dennis but if you want us to say no we
can say no we can say no it and I think one thing to point out
is let's say
uh retrofitting bookmobiles is an allowable cost but you don't want to
deal with that you can say no right right exactly as the slaa you can say we
do not pay for those types of costs yeah that's a oh yeah goad on the bonus um
question thing I thought there was some place in one of the CFR where it says it
has to be consistent for both state and federally funded people so if there is
some sort of like in that longevity bonus if the state had approved that to
retain people they were going to give a 5% for people who've been here 10 years
and 10% for people who've been here 20 years or something silly like that then
if it's consistent of both sides then it would be allowed is that still the case
or is this saying the inconsistencies are not
allowed the inconsistencies are definitely not allowed so it's good that
it's consistent that that would be like a solid uh point in your cost
justification cheese wedge uh and and that's really with any costs that you
use federal funds for they they need to be consistent with how you use State
funds as well so if you wouldn't pay for something with State funds but you'll
use federal funds for it uh you you probably don't want to use federal funds
for it yeah and I think too going back to that Foundation of reasonable and
necessary it's like is what this contractor is asking for reasonable to
what they're actually doing I think that's probably the most most critical
piece and to what Madison just said not using a federal contract to sort of
skirt what you would normally do with the rest of the state employees so yeah
that consistency is the cas
P okay so I have two questions um so I know in the allowables
OR ineligibles Capital purchases are not allowed or
capital projects so building those type things but often times with uh online
databases or ebooks some of for us our ebook purchases are listed as
capitalized is there a conflict there or is that we're looking at two different
issues here yeah go ahead that sounds like a
state language say the same thing declaration um so it should be okay that
I mean yeah like ebooks are not okay a capital project they're yeah from an i
constru they're not a yeah okay but we should leave it you don't need an allen
wrench for an ebook so we're good okay so but we should not confuse the issue
by adding that verbiage into the spr please
don't and my other question is back to the program income we get this question
a lot is like if you have a maker space and they have um sewing machines and
everything and you're keeping bobbins and thread around but people are having
to if in case people need to buy bobbins or thread or
whatever we've always allowed that as cost recovery what terminology would you
prefer us to use in those situations because we're not really it's not income
as in we're selling big things but we are allowing them to there's a small
nominal fee for supplies if the if the income is going right back into the
project then it's allowable yeah so I mean if you're not truly making money
above that then it's
allowable disagree no I I would agree yeah and that's generally how we frame
uh program income is uh we want we generally want those funds that you are
charging to go back into that same project um you just want to make sure
that it's that it's documented that you have pre-approval of IM imls to do
that that's true Terry
I mean I would recommend that you do it for each and every project just so that
you have clear documentation per project so if let's
say if an auditor were to come in and be like where are your project files and
they go look through a project they're like the CTS aren't in here it's like oh
that's because we keep the CTS over like it's probably not a it's probably up to
how you store your records and how you
organize your records but I would generally recommend doing the Cs for
every project I would agree I know it was best practice when I was in Ohio
that we would ask them to sign for every project if you're storing them even even
electronically you can just go to that particular project and they're all right
there so I would also recommend it not to mentioned the project directors under
at a you know Regional or a system could be different so um I think yeah it's
just good to make sure everybody knows
these are great questions you guys are sweating up there it's a great group it
such a great group thanks
Mara we won't accept any questions about allowable costs after this get done I
certainly won't I'm done you saw
this all right okay