Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Grant Management topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Adams County plans centralized grants policy and tracking tool to standardize grant lifecycle and subrecipient oversight
Summary
County staff and consultant Civitas presented a draft Grants Policy Manual to standardize how Adams County identifies, applies for, approves, administers and audits grants; the board supported staff moving forward to finalize the policy and return with a resolution for formal adoption and an implementation plan.
Adams County staff, working with consultants, presented a draft Grants Policy Manual designed to centralize grant intake, standardize evaluation and signature authority, and strengthen subrecipient monitoring and audit procedures across county departments.
Consultant Eric Chatham (Civitas) summarized a process that began in 2024: cross‑department trainings revealed inconsistent grant practices across departments and the need for a centralized review committee to evaluate grant opportunities, cost‑benefit tradeoffs, and compliance risks before the county applies for or passes through funds. The manual would introduce a standardized grant lifecycle, central review committee membership, a cost‑benefit analysis tool, and a grants management software platform (staff referenced a product used for ARPA tracking) to record applications, subrecipient profiles and monitoring results.
Key policy features include: a centralized grants committee (Spark, budget & finance, county attorney, and the applicant department) for reviewing grant opportunities; thresholds that require BOCC approval for grants that commit additional county resources beyond department budgets; a standardized subrecipient risk assessment to calibrate monitoring and audit levels; and a requirement for reviewed/compiled financial statements from subrecipients that fall below single‑audit thresholds. The consultant highlighted recent federal changes to conflict‑of‑interest rules (2 CFR 200 updates) that expand disclosure obligations and could require standardized conflict disclosures from staff, commissioners and subrecipient board members.
Commissioners signaled agreement with staff’s approach and asked for implementation details. Staff said they will return with a resolution to adopt the manual, and they plan department‑by‑department onboarding and training, a Smartsheet dashboard and integration with the county’s grant tracking software to avoid duplication and better coordinate applications and pass‑through awards.
