CDLPI Transcript_.pdf

>> Wendy Cunningham: Good morning, I am the CDL Grant program manager, you will notice that the presentation is a little different than last year. Last year we used PowerPoint presentations, to go over the NOFO. This year we will use the NOFO itself. Hopefully you’ve already reviewed the NOFO and have a copy with you so that you can follow along as we move through the NOFO. The first thing I’d like to point out is that the application due date is

February 21 and it is due by 5 PM Eastern. We will go over the time and due date a couple of times because it is important to be aware of it and getting those applications into grants.gov and confirmed before then. For any questions after this that are financial or about that application process itself, you can contact Montika Brooks and her information is there. And then there is my information for any programmatic concerns.

Let’s move on to section A, which is the program description. You will notice that we have highlighted the funding amount that is available, 32,702,000 and that is after our 1.5 administrative takedown. We have $32,702,000 available for funding this year. The next section of the block reemphasizes the goals of the national CDL program and how it supports our department’s strategic goals. Again, the one driver, one license, one record. Then we move on to the types of projects that the CDLPI financial grants support. We break them down into two types of projects the CDLPI Basic and then the CDLPI High Priority/Emerging Issues projects.

Remember that there are national priorities for fiscal year 20 that all applications must support a public purpose. Now we will go over to the Basic grants, and again, the Basic CDLPI funding can be awarded as a grant or cropped as an agreement, and only SDLAs are eligible for the Basic grant program. So, the first section that we are going through, the concentration is on the SDLAs and remember that it must support the development, implementation and maintenance of all or part of your CDL program and must have a direct impact with the state compliance with 49 CFR parts 383 and 384. This year you will notice again that we have a few projects that are 100% eligible for federal funding. We will talk about it in more detail as we go through but this year another change to be aware of as you are thinking about these projects that we are talking about. We will be requiring two separate applications, one for projects that are eligible for 100% federal funding and one application that has projects that are eligible for 85% funding.

The first project type, that is the priority for 100% funding, are projects that will achieve and maintain compliance with FMCSA’s CDL rulemaking. Those are projects that require information-technology programming to be in compliance by the compliance date for those CDL rules. The second type of application supports the correction and mitigation of CDL regulatory compliance. For this one to be 100% eligible, you have to have an approved corrective action plan to those findings in SCORE. SDLAs you should be familiar with SCORE and understand how to view that and determine if you have an approved action plan. The implementation of that action plan is what will be covered. Then we move on to the third type eligible for 100% funding and these are SDLAs data improvement and timeliness projects. In order to comply with broken and missing pointers so that we can narrow it down to zero, submitting your convictions within

10 days and correcting CDLIS transaction errors timely. Those types of projects are all 100% eligible.

Now we will move into projects that are 85% federally funded eligible. No changes from previous years, we will just go over them quickly. As a reminder, again, separate application for these types of projects. The first one is application projects that would support sustained CDL statutory compliance for the project. So maybe you had a finding in the past, had it corrected and maybe there is slippage and now you want to maintain that compliance level. That would be an example. Or B, applications that support the SDLAs partnership effort. Again, you may have a partnership with your courts, in order to get convictions or another SDLA or your law enforcement agency or even a university. Also, multijurisdictional projects we support. So, two

SDLAs wanted to work on an anti-fraud project, that would be an example. I’ve highlighted some of those in red, some of the examples about implementing our best practices. C, applications that support operations and maintenance projects. This is our lowest funding priority because again our grant program is not intended -- rather our program is intended not to supplement ongoing operational costs. Some examples of ONM projects are those kiosks and tablet operations maintenance or skills testing site improvement, those type of projects, again

85%. Then combating human trafficking, again, this is not brand-new anymore but we've had it a couple of years and it is a priority of our agency, combating human trafficking. Again, this is the

SDLA section under Basic. It is 85%. We've called your attention to this before and want to remind everybody that under CDLPI statute, grant funds cannot support the purchase, rent, lease of land or building.

Now we will move into the High Priority Emerging Issues types of process agreements and grant projects. These type of projects, again, eligible entities go beyond SDLAs. SDLAs you are still eligible for these but it also includes all state agencies, local government, and other entities that are capable of executing national projects that aid our state and compliance efforts and improve the national CDL program. So again, these are directly related to improving the

CDL process and improving safety. So, the very first project is something you have not seen before in our NOFO. This year, one of the priority projects is introducing the state being able to have a third-party who has the qualifications and experience in order to conduct a comprehensive review or assessment of their program to determine whether the state CDL program is compliant with the requirement of 384 and 383. This type of project would be awarded as a process agreement. There is a lot of detail here that I suggest you read, remember that the application must identify the qualifications and experience of the third party to conduct the comprehensive review or assessment of your program. An example of the third party might be your state auditing office. As we get into the requirements of the application there will be some mention about page limits. The documentation of the resumes or the qualification documentation won't count against this page requirement. There are some requirements on what needs to be covered in the comprehensive review and assessment, very quickly, operational portion of the review, data reconciliation review and legal sufficiency review. The details of what those areas cover, you can go over those. Remember, in order to receive this project, all of those have to be covered as part of that request to receive funding.

It will be awarded as a cooperative agreement and the next section here, B moves on to the High Priority Emerging Issue Projects that you've seen before. These include training and technical assistance to our CDL stakeholders including the courts, law enforcement, SDLAs or projects that facilitate the timeliness and accuracy and completeness of CDL data exchange between the different agencies. Also, offers direct guidance or consultation to our CDL stakeholders on best practices. Or it can be a project that demonstrates an innovative approach to reducing skills testing delays or an employer identification system, ENS, or human trafficking outreach projects that would be a national perspective. Again, these are 85% eligible products in section B. The next one is enhancing court expertise, that is another type of project with the detail there. Or detection and prevention of fraud in the CDL process. Another type of project would be hosting meetings and conferences to address CDL compliance issues amongst SDLAs.

This section highlights if there are specific elements that need to be included in the application if you are going to propose such type of project for meeting and conference proposal, just review that to make sure you hit all of the elements. Then finally, the last type of projects, you've seen this before, the temporary project of FMCSA CDL division, FMCSA would like at least one state person to work directly with the CDL division headquarters office. The person should have the proper qualifications, background and this would not exceed 12 months. The earliest start date would have been beginning of this year and again it would have to be completed by June 30

2022, it should be, it is not mandatory but it should be. This would be a process agreement as well. The requirements for this, you will see under here including the budget, make sure you pay attention to the section on the budget because we will be reviewing that if a project is submitted for that. The cost eligibility for this priority is 100% eligible. Again, up to 12 months so if a project that you would like to propose under this proposal is less than 12 months, that is fine, we just need to know how long the project is being proposed for.

Just some reminders, again that applicants must submit separate applications for projects that are eligible for 100% federal funding versus projects that are eligible for 85% funding. This year, you should identify if the project you are submitting is located in the qualified opportunity zone that has been designated in 26 U.S. code. For budget information, the reminder, please use whole numbers only, no cents. Montika will go through the 424 and the 424 A in more detail.

That you’re capturing each project objective separately and she will make the relationship of how that will work on the 424 A and just as a reference, you may have three separate projects for example, each one will have its own title, own introduction, own problem statement, its own performance measurement plan, monitoring plan and a budget narrative. If you as an applicant had three different projects, and let’s just say that project one qualified for 100%, project two for

85% and project three qualified for an 85% eligible federal funding project, you would have two applications one would be project one and the second application would include project two and three.

Now we are moving onto section B, the award information. We are estimating that we would make approximately 50 awards out of the total funding available and again, we will either make an award as a grant or cooperative agreement based on the funding recommendation. The period of performance, just a reminder, we have been in FAST Act for a while that has changed our criteria. It will be the fiscal year of awards and four succeeding years. Also, the reminder, those dates you need to propose the period in your 424, and Montika will go over that. So, this is fiscal year 20 NOFO, so all projects should have a start date no later than September 30, 2020.

Depending on the degree of federal involvement, it will determine if it is going to be a cooperative agreement or grant, those sections talk about that. Now we are moving into section

C, eligible information. Again, states are eligible and the program is not intended to supplement ongoing operational costs of the CDL program, its purpose is to assist states in achieving and sustaining the compliance for 383 and 384. For that reason, any funding that is a recurring State administrative receives the lower priority. That was the operation and maintenance we talked about earlier. And if you are an SDLA applying under the Basic, please review A, B, C, and D, to ensure that you understand that that is part of being eligible to receive funding. For non-state organizations, again, those organizations will only be considered under the High Priority

Emerging Issues grant funding, so refer back to the priorities under the High Priority Emerging

Issues section in the previous section A. Once again, the cost-sharing match requirement will be designated at 15% match required for those that are designated and the others are 100% eligible.

And then remember that all items must be eligible including your match in accordance to 2 CFR.

And the expectation when you are reimbursing is that each voucher will contain the proper amounts of match. At this point, I'm going to pause before we move on to the next section for

Montika.

>> Nikki McDavid: Great, let's go to some questions before we moved to Montika, I know we have a question that came in, even though you already answered this question, Wendy, I am going to share with everyone so we can make sure we are all on the same page. We will go to this question and ask to Towanda if she can open the phone lines if anyone wants to ask a live question. Are public universities eligible to submit applications under the CDLPI grant program?

>> Wendy Cunningham: Yes, they are. They are an eligible entity, but the project would just have to fall under one of the priorities.

>> Nikki McDavid: Okay, great, thank you so much for that and for the great information you just presented on. I'm sure our participants are learning a lot about the CDLPI NOFO and all the great projects they can apply for. We hope we received great applications from you all.

Towanda, I am going to ask if can we open up the phone lines for anyone who wants to speak up?

>> AT&T Operator, Towanda: Yes ma’am. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question please press 1 then 0 on your touchtone keypad. You may withdraw your question at any time by repeating the same touchtone command. Once again if you have a question please press 1 followed by 0 at this time.

>> Nikki McDavid: While we are waiting for out participants to get queued up, I have another question that came in which is a great question. I'm glad our participant asked this so that after

Wendy answers this question, everyone will know the answer to it. Are all the CDLPI high priority projects funded at 85% or 100%?

>> Wendy Cunningham: It will depend upon which type of project it is on whether it will be

85% or 100%. It just depends on what is listed in that section. Does that answer it sufficiently?

>> Nikki McDavid: Yes, I think it does. And of course, if anyone wants to submit their question through the Q&A pod, feel free to do that as well, I will turn it back over to Towanda to see if we have any questions that have come through the phone line?

>> AT&T Operator, Towanda: At this time, there are no further questions in the queue, ma'am.

>> Montika Brooks: With that being said, this is Montika Brooks, the Grants management specialist in the grants management office and I will be going over some of the application and submission information. It is very important for the applicant to download the application package for this NOFO from grants.gov. The applicant must complete and submit the application package with all required attachments through grants.gov before the deadline. I will speak more to the submission instructions as I go through this section. Next, I will go over the SF 424, if we can bring that up on the screen please. Thank you. This is the federal application for federal assistance also known as the SF 424 form. I will just point out to a couple of things that are very important when completing this as an applicant. I will not go through it in the entirety but I will say it is important that this form is completed in its entirety. If you look at section 8F, where it says name and contact information or person to be contacted on matters involving this application, that person needs to be the principal investigator or principle director that will be on the project. It is very important that you put that person's contact information in this section right here. As we go down, in this section, section 15, box 15, descriptive title of applicant project. For this project, depending on your application you will either insert CDLPI Basic or CDL High

Priority Emergent Issues in box 15. Section 17, proposed project period as Wendy previously stated, the proposed project period start date should be no later than September 30, 2020 and the end date will be the subsequent four years after that period that you put in your project for your proposed project period.

In section 18, for estimated funding, in this section, the applicant must insert the estimated federal share total and if a match is required on your project, the applicant must insert the estimated non-federal share total in box B. In box A, you will put as the applicant the proposed federal share total and in box B where it says applicant, that is the non-federal share box and that is where you will put a match total there. All costs on the SF 424 must be rounded to the nearest whole dollar amount. Please do not use any cents, all funding requests must be in whole dollars. Authorized representative, this is to establish the authorized representative that will be responsible for answering inquiries pertaining to this application as well as the project.

So, it is very important you designate someone who will be very responsive and responsible in this section. As I stated previously, it is very important that this form, even though I spoke to just a couple of the sections, but that the entire form is completed in its entirety. And if we can pull up the key contact form now.

Thank you. The key contact form request contact information for the authorized designated official also known as the ADL. The principal investigator or program director which are known as PI or PD, and the financial official. On this form, it should only be used when establishing additional or secondary personnel for all award activities throughout the grants life cycle such as shared responsibilities for authorized designated officials and principle investigators or directors. And or financial official roles. When completing the key contact form, please adhere to using the ADL, PI, PD and financial official title in the box that says contact one, project role. Do not use your organization’s internal title in that box. The reason being is because we use this form here for establishing the roles in the grant solution, grant automated system, so it is very important that we know the roles that each personnel will have on this project respectively.

Tiffany if you could please put up the SF 424 A form. Thank you. This is the budget form also known as the SF 424 A form which is another required form for the application package.

The applicant must break out and reference each project individually in column A on this form.

On this page of the form which is section A. If you look to the left, column A is titled grant program function or activity. Please note that project titles used on the SF 424 A must match those used in the application project narrative as well as the budget narrative. In column E on this form, the applicant is required to insert the federal share total for each individual project, so for example if you have three projects within your application, you will break those projects out individually on this cover sheet in section A of this form. In column F, the applicant must insert the nonfederal share for each individual project as well on this cover sheet form. Again, all costs on the SF 424 A must be rounded to the nearest whole dollar amount.

This is section B of the SF 424 A form. Again, the applicant is required to insert the line item cost for each project referenced in the application. Please be sure to use the same project titles that were used in section A of SF 424 A form at the top where again it is titled Grant program function or activity. Federal and nonfederal costs on the SF 424 A must match and total those stated on the SF 424 application project narrative as well as the budget narrative and please be sure to complete the SF 424 A and its entirety. I went over sections A and B, there is also a C and D and F. As with all federal OMB approved forms, there are instructions on how the form should be completed. I just wanted to add that if your project, if your budget includes indirect charges, please note that you must attach a copy of the fully executed negotiated agreement with your application in grants.gov. And before FMCSA will pay any reimbursements or indirect costs, the applicant must have a current and approved indirect cost rate agreement. In the event that the rate is not approved by the application due date, please attach a letter of renewal or a letter of request that you sent to your cognizant agency to your application. And Tiffany you can post the NOFO. And now I will hand it back over to Wendy Cunningham to go over some of the components of the actual application.

>> Wendy Cunningham: Thank you, Montika. The programmatic section of the application would start with a brief introduction that is limited to five pages maximum. This is the description of your goals of the application and applicable program priorities met by the applications projects. Remember we want you to identify each goal and the applicant must provide the problem statement that I pointed out in the other chart, a program activity and improvement measurement plan for each objective for each problem statement, IDs, a brief description. For SDLAs, you need to have the CDL program self-assessment program overview with a maximum of five pages, that gives us your synopsis of where your program is. Again, this is not a separate document and it is not required. It is not required for non-SDLAs. It should be a coordinated effort if there is an issue being addressed. The program overview is not a comprehensive description or a history of the applicant’s entire CDL program or an acceptable substitute for the compliance plan. Another key part of this is that it must include the three components of all of your open findings in SCORE. A list of any open CDLPI grant awards that you have currently with the award number, amount and brief description of the purpose and the remaining unexpended funds. And when you expect to fully expend that funding. And then the total number of noncommercial licenses versus the total number of CDL's issued to date and annually. You need that listed separately by COP and CDL. It gives us a picture of the size of your program.

Then moving into problem statement. Again, maximum five pages is the quantitative description of the identified problem. There should be data to support the proposed project.

There's an example provided there in italics. Performance objective, again limit of five pages, description of the applicant’s quantifiable goal related to the problem statement you made. This is measured by numbers, percentages or other forms that accurately measure the outputs and outcomes the applicant anticipates will result from implementing the strategies and activities proposed. And here's another example of that. Then program activity plan, again, five-page limit, this is the description of the activity that the applicant believes would help mitigate the problem.

You will need to include details such as the number and frequency of activities and there is an example provided in that description. And then performance measurement, a description of how you as an applicant will measure the progress towards the performance objective project goal such as your quantifiable and visual outputs, the number of hours for example, carrier funds. If you are doing skills testing or whatever the case may be, something that is a measurable output.

In terms of performance outcomes, it may also include milestones, and needs to have a specific benchmark that can be reported on a quarterly basis on your PCR, your progress report. Again there's an example there to help you work your way through. And then there's the illustration of project one, two, three. Just remember each type of project needs to have those elements identified in the project plan. Now I will hand it back to Montika to talk about the budget narrative.

>>Montika Brooks: Yes, so when developed, again the budget narrative, there is a five-page maximum, when developing a successful application budget narrative, it needs to explain the who, what, when, where and how of the line item cost to carry out the grant project goals, and objectives. This level of detail helps the reviewer understated the legitimacy of the cost proposed. The budget narrative should be clear, specific, detailed and mathematically correct. It should show how costs are allowable, allocable, reasonable and necessary for the project. There should be a description by budget costs that details the cost necessary to complete the proposed project. Provide a sufficient level of details to justify the funding requested. Justification for federal and nonfederal costs should be broken out for each project, so for example if your application has three projects, you must provide a budget narrative for each individual project.

Also, make sure to use the same cost category that's on the SF 424 A form. Federal and nonfederal costs must match those stated on the SF 424 and the SF 424 A. All costs in the budget narrative must be rounded to the nearest whole dollar. A sample budget narrative format is included in this NOFO under appendix B for guidance.

Sam.gov requirement, the applicant must be registered in the system for award management also known as Sam prior to submitting an application. Outdated registration will prevent entities from submitting applications. To verify expiration, please go to www.Sam.gov and click on search and enter a valid Duns number and click search. Please make sure your current Sam registration is active at all times. This applies to the application process and the award process period. The reason being, if we approve a grant award and the Sam has expired, it will delay the award process.

Submission dates and times. All full and complete applications for commercial driver’s license implementation are due on February 21, 2020 by 5 PM Eastern standard Time. FMCSA will not consider a late application except for under extraordinary circumstances. So, it is very important that your complete application is submitted grants.gov. Again, by or on February 21

2020 by 5 PM Eastern standard time. So once grants.gov receives your submission, they will send email messages to advise you of the progress of your application through the system. You should receive two emails within 48 hours after submitting the application package. The first email will confirm application receipt from the grants.gov system and the second email will indicate that the application has either been successfully validated by grants.gov prior to transmission to FMCSA or has been rejected due to errors. If you do not receive these emails, please contact grants.gov by phone at 1-800-518-4726 or at their support email address which is support@grants.gov. Their business hours are 24 hours, 7 days a week. Please note that they are closed on federal holidays. Again, if you do not receive these two emails, it is important that you contact grants.gov first, and then you can also let FMCSA know that you contacted grants.gov, you may even want to include them on the email. You can CC Wendy or I in the email to let us know the issue that you are having so that way we know you have contacted grants.gov.

mailto:support@grants.gov

Eligible CDLPI grant program costs include but are not limited to personnel expenses, equipment and travel expenses, indirect expenses, clerical and administrative expenses, expenses related to the improvement of real property, expenses related to data acquisition, storage and analysis that are not being requested under any other FMCSA grant program funding. Please read the detailed list to make sure proposed program costs are allowable.

Other submission requirements, prior to submitting your application, the applicant must complete the registration process on grants.gov. Please note the registration process can, for new users, take as long as four weeks so it is very important that you should start this process as soon as possible. To obtain an account, applicants must create a username and password and establish an authorized organizational representative and point of contact that will respond to all registration emails. The intake review process is done to ensure all of the proper documents have been received without error. But also make sure that all the documents requiring a signature have been signed. And also, to make sure that we don't have any duplicates for eligibility purposes. In this list below is the list of the eligibility criteria document. I will also suggest you refer to appendix A, which is titled Application Package Requirement Checklist to ensure that all documentation and information is included in your application packet. Now I will hand it over to

Wendy for the department’s route initiative.

>> Wendy Cunningham: This year a new item that you have not seen before in the NOFO is the reference to our departmental route initiative, the hyperlink is there for you to access. And we want to make sure that we recognize any type of project in the whole transportation network that faces challenges that that will be considered in the review process as well. So if in your description in your project plan, and whatever section is appropriate to describe that relationship and the geographical location of those activities, it is important for us to be able to identify that in the application. If it is affecting the rural area initiative that the department as a whole has.

Thank you, Montika.

>> Montika Brooks: Thank you, Wendy. Now I'm going to go over the technical merit review.

The technical merit review panel also known as TRP evaluates applications to determine that the applicant describe an enforcement program that will meet the stated objectives of the notice of funding availability, proposed work is based on sound principles of the commercial driver’s license program and will likely result in project success, staffing resource allocation is sufficient to achieve the program objective. All equipment, training and travel components are clearly linked in the project goal. The components are necessary to adequately equip, train and enable personnel. Cost is allowable and eligible per the program proposed expenditures are reasonable and amounts and clearly necessary to conduct the activities, performance roles and measurements are clearly identified and the monitoring and evaluation component states how the recipient will ensure project success. The budget review cost analysis reviewers will evaluate applications to determine the budget is consistent, budget costs are allowable, applicable, necessary and reasonable per office of management and budget uniform administrative requirement and all requirements for federal awards. And costs in a particular cost category have been properly identified as allowable with the necessary details used and not duplicate to the other budget line items. Now I will hand it back over to Wendy.

>> Wendy Cunningham: Thank you, Montika. So, a part of the merit review process includes the program specific aspect and applications again emphasizing that it must carry out a CDL project that reflects the program's priorities since that is a requirement that will likely achieve successful completion within an awards period of performance. We are looking at the overall projects in the proposal and the application and we are looking at it to see to what extent it meets the items here

A through D. We are looking at the priorities in the NOFO and has it hit upon that. Will it close a compliance finding that was indicated from an APR and SPR or other written correspondence that has been ongoing with an SDLA? The extent to which a project complements your existing program and enhances its capabilities, we also look at whether the project supports the potential for continuous success in achieving and maintaining compliance as well as is it an innovative approach that will have potential to benefit the nationwide CDLPI program in that process. For the program specific area. Past performance, we will take it back to Montika.

>> Montika Brooks: For past performance, applicant’s past performance with FMCSA will be evaluated to determin that the application allows FMCSA to monitor performance, the application is reasonable in scope, adequate to existing and emerging commercial vehicle safety issues and likely to succeed. Proposed expenditures are reasonable based on prior personnel and budgetary practices and that the applicant successfully performs and manages current projects.

At this time I will hand it back to Wendy to discuss ratings.

>> Wendy Cunningham: Thank you, Montika. For each application, upon the process of the merit review process and technical review panel all those, each grant application will receive a rating of either highly responsive, responsive, somewhat responsive, or not responsive. Each one of those gives a description of what level of weaknesses that may occur within the application to give us that rating and that helps with the process of the merit review in order to make the selection of the applications that would be forwarded for recommended funding. That concludes the selection process under the merit review process. I will hand it back to Montika for additional information.

>> Montika Brooks: For additional information, the risk assessment, it is conducted in several parts. I will be looking to see if there is a department or suspension review, who is the review of the applicant's administrative capability, questionnaire and system for award management records. A review of applicant's history with other federal agencies and the single audit clearinghouse database and an evaluation of the applicant's single audit in accordance with the

Single Audit Act. We do allow additional consideration, FMCSA may conduct inquiries to obtain clarifications if necessary. The FMCSA will consider the result of the review, applicant responses if applicable and recommend that the application be approved for award from currently available funds in its entirety or in part or be declined due to limited funds or unfavorable reviews. At this time, I will hand it over to Lester Finkle who will go over the Title

VI requirement.

>> Nikki McDavid: Before we get into the Title VI requirements, let's take a little break and go to our phone lines and Q&A pods since we've had a few questions come in that I would like us to answer before we move forward, is that okay with you?

>> Lester Finkle: That is fine with me, thank you.

>> Nikki McDavid: Thank you, Lester. All right, so, getting back to the question about the 85% versus 100%, so, Wendy, real quick, the projects that are under section B, I believe that is on page 6, are those 85% or 100% projects?

>> Wendy Cunningham: The section B will state whether it is 85% or 100%. If it does not state there's a summary in that same section that says it will be 85% requirement, if it doesn't state otherwise.

>> Nikki McDavid: Okay, great thank you for that clarification. Then we had another question come in, can you please clarify, Montika I think it is more appropriate for the grants management office to answer about the page limit. Can you please clarify whether the five-page limit for each section is per project or an aggregate for the entire application?

>> Montika Brooks: From my understanding, it is per application so it would not be per project.

If you have three projects, in your application you would still have to adhere to the page limit per application.

>> Nikki McDavid: Okay, thank you for that clarification. And Towanda, while we have you with us can you open up the phone lines to see if we have any questions that our participants want to ask of us?

>> AT&T Operator, Towanda: I would be glad to. Ladies and gentlemen as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question please press one and zero at this time. We currently have no questions in queue.

>> Nikki McDavid: Ok, well we had one that came in while we were getting our participants queued up. And Montika I know this question goes to you. It was all about the key contact form.

What are the roles you are looking for in the key contact form? The person that asked the question said that they were mentioned kind of quickly so if we could go over those again for the good of the group?

>> Montika Brooks: Sure. Those three roles are the authorized designated official also known as the ADO for the authorized assignment. The next role is the principal investigator or program

Director, known as the PI or PD which is the program or project manager and then also a financial official who is also internally probably known as the grants manager. Those are the three roles.

>> Nikki McDavid; Okay, great, thank you so much. And I believe that information is in the materials in the download pod, if they need to refer to it at a later time, Montika?

>> Montika Brooks: I believe so, if not, feel free to email me or call me and I will be sure I can send you that information and provide it to you.

>> Nikki McDavid: Great, we have their contact information on the front of the NOFO. Please feel free to use that information, the email, the phone numbers that contact information is for you to use so I am glad you have it available to you. There's another question, due to some projects that are reimbursable at 100% versus 85%, is it allowable to submit two basic grants? One for

85% projects and one for 100% project? Or should they be combined? Wendy I know you addressed this at the beginning of the presentation but let's go back so that we are all hearing the same thing, okay?

>> Wendy Cunningham: Yes, so you would be required to submit two separate applications even though they may fall under the priority called Basic. We would expect to have one application that includes all the 100% proposed projects and then one application that proposes all the 85% participation projects. Thank you.

>> Nikki McDavid: Great, that is spelled out in the NOFO so what we are expecting to see, as

Wendy mentioned, if you have five projects and three of them are at 85% and two are at 100%, we are expecting to see two applications from you, one for the 100% project and one for the 85% project. I hope that is clear and as we mentioned it is in the NOFO. I can't recall which page it is on but it is in the NOFO and again, if you have any questions, please do not feel you have to go at it alone, we are here to help. Montika and Wendy are here as a resource to you. With that, Lester, I think we are ready for your presentation.

>> Lester Finkle: Very good, thank you, Nikki. Good day everyone, my name is Lester Finkle and I am the FMCSA National Title VI program manager. This is the fourth year for the plan requirement. I started reflecting upon it last summer when I started to work with our MCSAP grantees for FY 2020 and it is amazing how time goes by so fast. I am pleased to be with you again for FY 2020 to go over the title VI program requirements for our grants. With that, I will move to the first slide. For those of our grantees that receive money in FY 19, we will be updating the plan that was approved for FY 19 and updating it for FY 2020 approval. The update will include a re-signing and re-dating of the policy statement and the assurance. And then, I have been going through with a number of you that have reached out to me or I have been in contact, I've appreciated the time to go through the FY 19 plan to see if there is anything else that needs to be updated in any of the sections of the plan. So, if we didn't have a chance to coordinate for FY 2020, if you wouldn’t mind reaching out to me, my contact information will be at the end of this presentation I would be appreciative and I will be happy to walk through the plan with you to go over in addition to the re-signing and re-dating of the policy statement and assurance, if there is anything else that needs to be updated. I'll look forward to hearing from any number of you. As a comment for our MCSAP grantees who also have motor’s licensure and motor vehicle registration activities that they conduct, a letter from me for FY 2020, you do not need to do anything more for the title VI program requirements for 2020. There are only three other MCSAP grantees that do not have approved plans for 2020 and I am working with them to get that. I'm trying to think of the three, if you have an approval letter from me, you're good to go for 2020. For those who have not coordinated with me then we will be updating the 19 plan for

2020.

For those that did not receive funds last year or may not have applied for funding last year but have a plan from a previous year, I will be looking to coordinate with you to update the plan for 2020. If you haven't applied for funding in the time that the plan has been required, say in the last four years, then a plan will need to be developed and I will guide you through that process. I'm not aware of anyone from the SDLAs side that has not, but if you happen to be in that category where you are certain you don't have one or you are not certain, just contact me and we will double check. If you don't have a plan, please do contact me and I will guide you through the process to develop the plan. Next slide.

Again, I will be providing technical assistance to all of our grant applicants for this year as I do and have done in past years. Again, the policy statement, the assurance needs to be re-signed and re-dated and the plan will be updated and I will provide an approval letter once the plan is ready for approval. The checklist for the plan has not changed since last year so for those of you that have been involved in this for a while, the sections should look familiar to you.

There's the policy statement which will need to be re-signed and re-dated by the CEO. The assurance the same thing, re-signing and re-dating the assurance. The CEO would re-sign and re-date that; the Chief Executive Officer. The description of federal aid programs is pretty simple. It is just which grant program are you applying for and a summary of activities associated with the grant program. Notification of beneficiaries and participants, this is the poster I provided to many of you in the past, the posted hardcopy is uploaded to the website and that has not changed. Sub recipient compliance reports, this will have more information in it if you presently sub award any portion of our funds or intend to sub award any portion of our funds. If that is the case, then we require that the sub recipient provide a plan including a signed and dated assurance to you since you are the direct recipients, if you sub award any of our funds, that would be a sub recipient relationship with FMCSA and the sub recipient would be required to submit a plan to you as the recipient. I of course am available for reviewing or providing guidance on how to develop the plan with the sub recipient. So if you have not worked with me on that before and are intending on sub awarding any portion of the funds and you have not done that in past, please let me know and I will work with you on that. If you do not sub award any of our funds, then a simple statement to that effect is all I need under that heading. For training, each of our grantees has committed to an annual or every other year training for their employees, regarding title VI program requirements.

The access to records section is straightforward boilerplate section that says that the recipient commits to providing title VI program documentation to FMCSA upon request during normal business hours and this does not change from year to year. Complaint disposition process, most likely has not changed either. If there are any procedural updates, we will of course want to make sure they are updated before the plan becomes final for 2020 but this is the process for receiving complaints for members of the public and how your agency disposes of those complaints. Status of corrective actions is if a federal agency has conducted a title VI program compliance review of your title VI program in the last year. If so I ask for which federal agency, were deficiencies identified and if so what corrective actions were taken? If a federal agency did not conduct a title VI program compliance review of your title VI program last year, then a simple statement to that effect is all that I need there. Community participation process, this was new, a couple of federal fiscal years ago anyway, for all of our returning grant applicants, our SDLA returning grant applicants, we are in good shape because the section has been fleshed out and is either fully satisfactory or is in the process of being satisfactory. So I will just double check for each of you as I become aware that you will be applying, just to make sure it looks good and if I have any comments or questions I will provide those to you. So those are the 10 sections of the plan and they have not changed from 2019.

So, because this is year four of the plan requirement, it is not so much that it is year four but it has been enough time that I'm feeling good about where we are as an agency and where our grantees are in respect to the plan, not only having been developed but being maintained from year-to-year. There are two additional items I am asking for, the first one is a complaint log, this differs from a complaint form. Most of you have already communicated or coordinated with me about a complaint form. The complaint form is what the public sees and what a member of the public uses should a member of the public want to file a complaint with your agency. The complaint log of the U.S. DOT requires a complaint log to be maintained by all U.S. DOT grantees and the headings that are required to be in the log, that the U.S. DOT requires are bulletized there in the slide that you are seeing. I do have an example that I have been providing, from another grantee, so I am happy to provide you with the visual of how it looks but it will have these headings in it. If you would like a copy of that, please let me know and I would be happy to forward that to you. The complaint log needs to be maintained even if you have not received a title VI complaint in the last few years, as a grantee you are still required to maintain

it. So, this is one of the two additional items I am asking for 2020.

The other item is a training record, again each of you has committed to providing title VI program training to your employees either annually or every other year, so this year for 2020, I am asking for a record or a log of the employees that received title VI program training in the last year. If you provide training to your employees every other year, then all I need to know is, if you didn't do it in 19 but are intending to do it in 20, we will make sure the training section of the plan reflects that and that you will be providing to me a training record or log when it is available. I have received a number of training records that come in different forms. From a few of our grantees I've actually gotten signed certificates or documents from individuals that have taken the training that they provide regarding title VI program requirements. I've also gotten spreadsheets, a printed listing of names. So I'm not so concerned as to how it is being maintained as long as there is a record of some type and I am asking for that record of those employees for last year that received title VI program training. You can go to my contact information and then we can entertain any questions at this time.

>> AT&T Operator, Towanda: Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder if you like to ask a question please press one, then zero at this time.

>> NTC Host: Tiffany Weaver: Nikki are you there?

>> Nikki McDavid: I am.

>> NTC Host: Tiffany Weaver Okay. [ Laughter ]

>> Nikki McDavid: I guess we are not getting anyone to dial in for questions.

>> AT&T Operator, Towanda: We actually have two but they are with the operator at this time.

>> Nikki McDavid: Okay, great.

>> Lester Finkle: I see in the chat pod, Nina, if you would please send me an email, I would greatly appreciate that and I would be happy to send you a copy of the complaint log. If you don't mind emailing me at Lester.Finkle@dot.gov, I would appreciate that.

>> Nikki McDavid: I guess that goes for anyone who wants a copy of the log. [laughter]

>> Lester Finkle: Yes. [laughter]

>> Nikki McDavid: Please send an email Lester and you’ll get it.

>> AT&T Operator, Towanda: And our first question will come from the line of Eileen Bishop.

Your line is open

>> Eileen Bishop: Does the approval letter for the title VI program plan have to be included with the grant application?

>> Lester Finkle: Thank you for the question, no it does not, I am doing a parallel effort, so I will provide you with the approval letter but you do not need to submit that with the application, so long as we've coordinated and I have it in my records.

>> Eileen Bishop: Great, thank you Lester.

>> Lester Finkle: You are welcome.

mailto:Lester.Finkle@dot.gov

>> AT&T Operator, Towanda: Thanks for your patience, next we will go to the line of Joan Gay, your line is open.

>> Joan Gay: I would like to ask a general question, on page 6 under section B, applications requesting funding that provide training technical assistance, refers to CDL stakeholders including states, courts and law enforcement, my question is would FMCSA also be regarded as a stakeholder?

>> Wendy Cunningham: Nikki, I can take that.

>> Nikki McDavid: Sorry, I was on mute. Yes, please Wendy.

>> Wendy Cunningham: FMCSA grants cannot be used to train FMCSA employees, so Joan if it is a question about can a grant application be used to train FMCSA employees, no.