The City of Murfreesboro Grants Committee voted to approve the midyear and final report questionnaires and the application and funding schedule for the next grant cycle, and instructed staff to add new clarifying language and questions to the application materials.
Why it matters: Committee members said they want clearer documentation that grant funds are used as proposed and that applications give staff and committee information needed to assess local impact. The approved changes are intended to improve accountability and to give the committee discretion in future awards.
Key changes described in the meeting include: adding a notice in the project-summary portion of the application that "any substantial deviation from your project summary may impact future funding decisions"; including a requirement or optional template for organizations to provide a local budget or line items showing how award dollars will be used inside Murfreesboro; adding a yes-or-no question asking whether the organization experienced fraud or other significant internal loss during the prior fiscal period and, if yes, an explanation; and clarifying how committees may treat unspent balances (committee discretion to request return or roll balances into future funding at the committee’s discretion).
Committee members discussed balancing oversight with not discouraging efficient spending. They agreed that small leftover balances would not require action but that significant unspent funds should be explained and might affect future awards. Members also suggested creating an internal tracking document that records historical funding amounts, compliance issues, and previous-year performance to inform scoring in future cycles.
The committee approved the midyear and final report questionnaires and the application and funding schedule by roll-call vote. The committee also asked staff to draft recommended wording for the new deviations and internal-control questions and to add a field in the application for applicants to provide a local budget or explanation of Murfreesboro-specific expenditures.
Ending: Staff said they will update the application attachments and scoring guidance, research federal language for the internal-control question, and return draft wording for committee approval before the next application cycle opens.