Grants Monitoring and Financial Reconciliations

Effective Date: 7/1/2024

Purpose

BWSR is responsible for oversight of the state grant funds that are issued to grantees and following the policies for grants oversight prescribed by the state’s Office of Grants Management (OGM).  Monitoring and financial reconciliations are a way to provide guidance to the grantee; increase transparency within the grants process; and help to ensure public funds are spent for the purposes that they were given and are in compliance with the terms and conditions of the grant agreement.

Monitoring

BWSR monitors grants annually.  Monitoring is a procedure of reviewing and documenting progress towards grant agreement implementation and compliance with grant agreement provisions.  It happens at the beginning, when staff work with projects for application and approve work plans.  It happens with the annual reporting.  And it happens at the end, during grant close out, when staff assess progress on planned versus actual results.  Additional monitoring occurs through technical assistance, desk review, on-site review, or ongoing communications with the grantee.  Monitoring may include a sampling of documentation provided.

Financial Reconciliations

BWSR typically reconciles payments on grants $50,000 and over either when a request for a payment is made and/or before the grant is closed out.  It is a procedure of reconciling a grantee’s reported expenditures for a given period with supporting documentation, such as purchase orders, receipts, and payroll records.  Reconciliations can occur either on-site in your office or through a desk review of documents submitted and are initiated based on the grant spending reported.  The process is as follows:

Documentation is required to support claimed expenses and the following flow chart provides an outline of documents needed for the reconciliation process.  When submitting information, no “not public data” should be included.  There are two broad expenditure categories for reconciliation: Staff time, and Direct Program Costs.

Staff Time

     Direct (Program) Costs

Direct costs are costs which can be identified specifically with a particular final objective.

History