By: Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The FIVCO board welcomed guest speaker, Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development secretary Jeff Noel, at their August meeting.
“We still have about $70 million in the grant program,” Noel told the board. “And as you all know, we have had 15 grant awards in the FIVCO area. I think that is great. And the best part is that the local match for a federal grant I think is three or four percent.”
“It has been a great program,” Noel continued. “And don’t let that money go unawarded. As I have tried to tell everyone, we asked in the last session, and we got better clarity and better flexibility on which kinds of federal programs could be used, and which programs are narrow and restrictive. We also got some changes because there are several grant applications that don’t have a written local match requirement.”
As Noel stated, most federal grants have a match requirement. This means that a portion (usually dictated by the grant itself) of the funds needed to complete a program must be provided by the grant recipient and cannot be from federal funds. This can often be a barrier to smaller organizations, because even at a low percentage of match, on a grant of a large size, the match itself can be considerable.
Although organizations of the size of a city or county would be better able to shoulder the expense, if that city or county could take advantage of a no-match grant then the savings could be used to fund other projects. But Noel cautioned the board not to focus on the absence of a written match requirement.
“The interpretation was that we couldn’t allow a local match if it (the grant) didn’t require one. But my position is that common sense states that these are competitive grants, so the more you have in terms of a local match, the higher chance you have of getting an award. And we have some flexibility in doing that,” he noted.
“I would advise you to use that program,” Noel said. “We have worked very well with the AD Districts, and we also have Grant Ready Kentucky on contract, and they are out making visits. And there is still money available for local not-for-profits. So, if there are some nutrition programs or delivery programs, a not-for-profit could get a federal grant and we could cover the local match.”
On a less positive note, Noel reminded the board that there were a lot of federal grants that were being cut.
“But there are more grants out there,” he said. “I believe there is something of the magnitude of two trillion dollars of total grants available.”
“We’re asking for, and we are really starting to see that we can go after more than the traditional grants like ADML (Abandoned Mine Lands) and CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) and others because that’s typically where we have always gone. Let’s go after these new dollars of perhaps where we haven’t gone before. I encourage you to use that program, and please give us a call.”
Noel said another thing he felt was important was that they are in the last round of KPDI (Kentucky Product Development Initiative) funding. Noel said these were funds that are typically used for industrial parks, but he is seeing a trend where several organizations go together to secure this funding. Then the funding is used to supplement other funding to complete projects.
Noel also reminded the board that there were federal grants available for housing. An example he used was that if an entity had sixty acres, then with different grants housing could be developed on half and half be reserved for industrial use. In a competitive landscape such as federal grants, Noel encouraged the board to look at projects from outside of the box in order to build a better box.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
