R ELEVANT S TRATEGIC P LAN E LEMENTS Program Area: “Management Support”

BOARD/COMMISSION POLICIES AND

ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTIVES

Policy or Directive Number Title

Widlife Policy None specified State Fiscal Rules Policy None specified State Procurement Rules

Directive F-17 Federal Aid Grants & Fishing Is Fun Grant Program Parks

Directive B-301 Forest Management

Directive B-275 Wildlife Hunting and Management in State Parks

63 Desired outcomes:

• The Division is recognized as an effective and efficient state agency

• Funding is sufficient to manage fish and wildlife and serve the public

• Everyone who enjoys or benefits from wildlife contributes to supporting wildlife habitat

• Facilities, equipment, and information systems are safe, reliable and cost effective Parks Strategic Plan 2010

Five goals were identified in the plan:

• Connect people to the outdoors by providing quality outdoor recreation opportunities and settings

• Conserve, enhance, manage, and interpret natural, cultural, and scenic resources

• Foster and actively promote excellence in our workforce

• Stabilize and strengthen Colorado State Parks’ financial condition

• Strengthen outreach and partnerships

I ^SSUES /C ONSIDERATIONS

An actual grant administration/coordination function should provide oversight to all other grant management processes to ensure that the grant funding is utilized by agency staff in a responsible and transparent manner. Grant administration/coordination includes proficiency with all grant program criteria (funding, eligibility, match, etc.) that grantees must follow. A grant administrator/coordinator also is often the agency lead for interactions with grantors (funding agencies), planning and budgeting within the agency for proper overall use of the grant funds, interactions with other accounting and procurement functions, standardization of grant processes, and identification of new grant

opportunities. Wildlife already has staff that not only serves as grant administrators/coordinators, but also at times act in a program grant manager capacity. Parks only has staff that serves as program grant managers who receive annual grant funding and then manage the use of that funding at the field level.

The use of the grant administrator/coordinator function is necessary at Wildlife due to the way that the funding plan is setup. At Wildlife grants are used to fund overall programmatic functions of the Division, since these programs impact the entire Division there are many end-users of the grant funds. So

coordination is needed between various program grant managers and sometimes the program grant management is handled by the grant administration function. In addition, these overarching grants are complicated and involve many aspects that are better handled by an expert. Associated aspects include knowledge of numerous federal statutes, compliance issues, and other administrative tasks that must be addressed when utilizing Federal Aid funding each year. Since there are centralized experts this function acts in a consulting role to end-users of grant funding and answer daily questions from staff regarding the proper use of these funds (prescribed burns, right-of-ways, development of subsurface mineral rights, land exchanges, etc.). Office of the Inspector General (OIG) auditors also visit the agency every five years (next will begin in 2014) to review the way the agency is utilizing its Federal Aid funding. Any administrative, engineering, real estate, finance, or field staff may be involved in these audits. There are federal statutes and guidelines that apply to each possible use of Federal Aid grant funding (e.g.,

property management, real estate transactions, research, planning, shooting ranges, etc.). Therefore, even though Wildlife does have Program Grant Managers, it is the Grant Administrator/Coordinator that

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offers technical guidance to these staff regarding the proper use of their grant funds. Other grant funds managed at both Parks and Wildlife are subject to several of the same type of requirements.

Historically, Parks has managed grants in a very decentralized fashion for the most part. In doing so, an actual grant administration function has been lacking. Due to the strict requirements surrounding Federal Assistance funding, Wildlife has managed grants in a very centralized fashion, with the grant administrators either providing oversight to program grant managers (aka, Project Leaders in the field) or acting as grant project managers for certain grants.

H

C

At both agencies it is probably safe to assert that program managers are tasked with on-the-ground job responsibilities and rarely, if ever, feel that actual grant administration should be part of their job responsibilities. At both Wildlife and Parks grants have been managed at the program level by on-the-ground property managers, research scientists, population managers alike. Although these staff are very capable of preparing the necessary annual funding requests for the work they are managing, tracking the use of grant funding during the year, and preparing final reports they do not either have the time or interest in the overall grant program criteria (federal or non-federal) that govern these grant funds and typically need to be able to depend on those that have this expertise in the agency (i.e., Grant Administrators) for the providing the oversight for proper administration of these grant funds.

• Both have federal and non-federal grants

C

/S

A

• Both use COFRs to track grant revenue and expenditures

• Both use the same set up sheets for entering grant funding in COFRS

• KRONOS – but Certs may be different between both Parks & Wildlife; greater details currently used by Wildlife to track time worked on various grants; Parks detail more at the program level currently.

• Both have accountability needs – that vary by grantor

• Both have sub-grant (pass-through grants) program managers/coordinators

• Both prepare similar program reports

• Same accounting systems

P

S

A

• Similar coding structures

• Wildlife has an annual budget planning document that defines how they finance programs

• Wildlife tracks grant revenue and expenditures in quarterly updated Excel spreadsheets

• Both agencies manage both federal and non-federal grant funding

• Wildlife has grant administration expertise

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• Grants are administered different - the grant administration role is not present at Parks.

F

D

• Approval levels within each agency are different

• Organization structure is different within each agency

• Federal Aid has a very specific application and reporting requirements for specific types of grants – research or survey for large multi-year grants, the project leader/manager does the reports; Wildlife writes some final reports after checking progress on completion.

• A lot of grants at both agencies are for the same type of things – i.e., are program related. They support a commonality – a central funding source, but the purpose/mission of the agencies are different.

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SWOT A NALYSIS OF M ^ERGING C ^ORE F ^UNCTIONS

Table 3. SWOT Analysis of Merging Strengths

Core Work Functions

Weaknesses

• Both have good system to track expenditures

• Both have good relationships with the grantor entities (Feds & local governments, and other agencies)

• Central knowledge base has a lot of

strengths and provides a great perspective

• Grant administrative expertise at Wildlife

• Wildlife has a strong coding system that allows accurate grant reporting

• Multiple approval levels impacts timeliness of grant opportunities

• Lack of communication in procedures to end users

• Decentralized grant process at Parks could lead to individual program goals being pursured as opposed to an agency-wide goalVarying requirements between grantors for each agency

• No centralized grant management at Parks which could result in potential missed grant opportunities and lack of overall expertise on grant administration/management.

Opportunities Threats

• Great opportunities for finding more grant funding

• Develop positive partnerships with granting entities

• Develop standard grant process and database management system for new agency

• Share grant expertise

• Use of KRONOs to track time for efficiencies

• Loss of financial accountability because of increased diversion /loss of control potential

• Loss of funding due to questioned costs in FA audits / high risk FA audit rating with FWS.

• Learning curve may be high for the expectations.

• Some significant cultural differences between agencies

• Level of complexity of work may initially increase which may result in affecting grant management.

W ^ORK G ^ROUP S ^{COPE OF} W ^ORK

As part of the Financial Work Group the Grants Subgroup conducted the following:

• Evaluated the grant management processes currently in place at both Parks and Wildlife agencies. Some limited analysis was made of grant administrative processes at other state agencies.

• Assessed Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) for the current grant management processes at both agenicies. This analysis identified potential areas of concern, as

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well as possible opportunities for improved grant administration procedures for the new joint agency.

• Studied various types of alternatives, including maintaining the current status quo while assuring a grant administration function at both agencies, to creating a new Grants Section that would have a greater presence within and outside of the new joint agency.

In the end, any new grant management/administrative function and/or organization will be highly dependent on changes that are adopted in the Accounting, Budget, and Contracting Sections since grant administration works closely with these sections. It has been determined that perhaps a gradual

realignment of grant administrative processes would be most desirable to allow a response to the changes that are adopted in the Accounting, Budget, and Contracting Sections. Finally, it is very difficult to predict any actual gained efficiency, enhancements, or other improvements by proposed changes to grant administrative processes for the new joint agency. So, perhaps, the best way to assess the success of any proposed changes to the grant administrative processes is by the overall effect to staff involved, the long-term effectiveness of proposed changes, and the potential to identify new grant opportunities for both Wildlife and Parks.

W ^ORK G ^ROUP A LTERNATIVES

Three Grant Subgroup alternatives are described below. The Finance Workgroup felt that any grants alternative should include an actual grant administration/coordination function to provide oversight to and coordination for all other grant management processes in the new agency. The Grant

Administrator(s)/Coordinator(s) would be responsible for oversight of grant program management within the agency, including proficiency with all grant program (funding, match, eligibility) criteria, as well as agency leads for interactions with grantors (funding agencies), planning and budgeting within the agency for proper overall management of grant funds, interactions with other accounting and

procurement functions, standardization of grant processes, and identification of new grant opportunities. This function would immediately ensure and improve the opportunity for added efficiencies in current agency grant management functions. By providing this grant

administration/coordination function it would ensure that all grant funding would be managed in a responsible and transparent manner – thereby, reducing the incidence of staff errors and possible inefficiencies.

Program grant management would stay the same at Parks with the addition of a grant administration/coordination function for Parks grant programs; program grant management would stay the same at Wildlife and would continue use of the grant administrative/coordination function.