Nevada Education Department cites cascading 2025 disruptions as drivers of FY26 subaward delays

Amber (Grants Management Unit supervisor, Nevada Department of Education) opened the quarterly subrecipient meeting by describing 2025 as an unusually disruptive year for NDE and laying out how those events affected the department's ability to approve and pay subawards for FY26.

The most immediate operational impacts stemmed from a major state payment processing upgrade that lengthened steps for drawing federal funds and constrained the department's ability to pay large RFRs without controller office notifications; missing grant award notices (GANs) on July 1 that left 109 subaward agreements at risk (89 of those had previously been approved); and a cybersecurity attack on Aug. 24 that intermittently locked staff out of devices and network resources. "When we don't have the money from the feds, you also don't have the money," Amber said, explaining the cash‑flow risk to subrecipients when GANs are delayed.

NDE staff stressed those problems layered on routine workload peaks. The department said it starts the FY26 rollout planning in December and uses a "master grants timeline" to coordinate roughly 310 required subaward approvals over about 105 business days. The GMU demonstrated an internal Smartsheet planner and reported current operational counts: Ben Johnson (NDE staff) said the agency has 504 currently active awards in the FY26 planner and 120 subrecipient entities in ePage; Amber estimated that, across FY23–FY25 carryover awards, the state is managing at least 1,000 subaward agreements.

The agency highlighted the statutory nature and scale of monthly pupil‑centered funding plan (PCFP) disbursements. Staff noted those payments go to 17 school districts and about 58 charter academies and involve multiple component payments; participants in the meeting chat cited a monthly total near $474,000,000. Amber said ensuring those statutory payments cleared during outages was a departmental priority during the cyber event.

Staffing also constrained capacity. Amber described internal promotions and churn: Ben Johnson was promoted to a GMU supervisor role and Nancy Sanchez accepted a budget analyst position in the Office of Fiscal Operations, producing an anticipated rise in vacancies. The GMU warned of a projected roughly 55% vacancy rate in coming weeks and said HR delays after the cyber incident slowed hiring timelines.

To reduce approval friction, GMU staff reiterated practical guidance for subaward rev‑0 budgets: use the chart of accounts cheat sheet as a "textbook," avoid embedding arithmetic in budget narratives (especially benefits math), use ePage budget detail fields for calculations, code IT items consistently with useful life expectations, limit long narrative essays and peer‑review drafts before submission. Amber said the department will not ask subrecipients to fix items that were not previously identified as corrections but emphasized that any post‑approval changes can trigger additional review.

On federal funding timing and the government shutdown, Amber said NDE has submitted draws that placed federal dollars in the state's account but cannot claim them until the state payment system is fully restored. To ease immediate cash‑flow pressure, the department will accept combined RFRs for July and August to let subrecipients "get caught up," and will resume monthly RFRs after catch‑up. Amber also announced TA offerings: an upcoming November session on 387/388a reports and a planned office hour on indirect cost rates in November or December.

Other operational notes included: an August revised GAN for GEAR UP that required interpretation; the transfer of Perkins and AEFLA grants from the U.S. Department of Education to the Department of Labor (ePage materials will be updated); single audit compliance supplemental guidance was pulled during the federal shutdown and has not been republished; and maintenance‑of‑effort work for special education (FY24) is in progress in the Office of Comprehensive Student Supports.

The department closed by promising to post the slide deck, recording and cheat sheet, asking subrecipients to use the bolded terms on the cheat sheet in narratives, and thanking attendees for their partnership.