FEMA Public Assistance

FEMA Grant Accounting Basics: Labor Cost Reporting

19 May 2020 by Christina Moore

Grant Labor Cost Reporting

Halve the time it takes to enter and calculate labor, equipment and materials costs, while omitting errors using one simple tool. We all want FEMA assistance, but some of the FEMA grant accounting basics take some training and getting used to. Join us while we learn how to manage disaster relief grants and report labor costs.

We are providing grant management best practices so that you and your team will learn how to manage FEMA grants. If you appreciate this presentation, please share it.

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Labor, Equipment, & Materials Costs

Reporting the true costs of using your labor force for executing a FEMA-funded grant requires some extra steps. You’d think a payroll report is enough. While detailed payroll records are required, it’s the starting point. Your payroll data shows all hours worked, using the payrates for employees. Whereas FEMA wants you to report only the hours worked performing eligible tasks – tasks described within the grant’s scope of work. And the rate FEMA reimburses you includes benefits, taxes, and related costs. FEMA calls this the Fringe Rate – I often think of it as the “FEMA billing rate”.

Prior to calculating and reporting labor and equipment costs, you’ll have setup your staff and equipment in Tempest-GEMS. We cover this in: “Setting Up for Labor, Equipment & Material Cost Reporting”.

From this starting point, we’ll examine how to enter and calculate labor, equipment and materials costs, while omitting errors using Tempest-GEMS. We will then look at the reporting process. If you are an applicant using Tempest-GEMS and your state is also on the system, you use the Request feature. If you are an applicant using Tempest-GEMS and your state is not on the system, then you create FEMA reports as a means of asking for reimbursement.

Force Labor, Equipment, & Materials

To start, we click on the grants menu then the transactions. We can add (green buttons add) or edit an existing labor, equipment, and material record now – which is also called “force account”. Every transaction inside of Tempest-GEMS is given a unique number. I have heard people reference these numbers in conversations and emails because they are precise and unique. A force account entry is work done by your people, or your equipment, on a given day that satisfies some element of the scope of work.

Make sure that the date falls within the performance date of your grant. All FEMA assistance grants have a start performance date and an end performance date. Your work date must be between start and end. If it is not, it is not eligible.

The activity description field should be used to provide a description of the work that is clearly scope-eligible. If the scope says pick up yellow dots, then the work description should kinda be similar to that. Then we inform Tempest-GEMS how many hours we worked.

Knowing grant management best practices and understanding the challenges others have had with the FEMA Public Assistance Grant Program provides you the foundation for knowing what to emphasize. Each element, each data entry point, will either enhance and improve your ability to recover money from FEMA – or it will create problems.

Some of these little fields link raw data to your mission. Of course, you must type a work description that is backed by physical evidence such as timesheets or worklogs. Can’t lie. So use the truth to enhance your posture!

Tempest-GEMS links a work entry to a piece of equipment. This is important during weather-based disasters – Billy Bob driving a big yellow truck with 4 culverts. It maybe less important during the COVID-19 emergency work. People are not removing debris from roads or fixing damage. Your reporting for COVID-19 will likely have employees! So yes on that.

Employees

When would you not have an employee with one of these records? The most common answer is a generator. Other answers can include large light sets, or stand-alone equipment. For the COVID-19 disaster, I’m going to emphasize labor costs.

Automatically Calculates Labor Value

So, yes in our example there is an employee. We’ll pick one from our list. The system will offer us the rates that we previously put in. Click, click, pick a rate and it has calculated the labor value for us.

How fast is this? I type in (or select) the date. Type a description (maybe I keep one in my copy buffer because I’m efficient). Type the hours and hit tab. Tab, tab to get the employee. I type the first letters of the last name, and hit tab, type the “O” for over time, hit tab, select my rate. Done. A touch typist is done in seconds. With a mouse it is a little slower because a hand shifts between the mouse and keyboard.

Is this faster than Excel? Not only yes, but unlike Excel Tempest-GEMS pulls from data that is already set up.

Given speed and efficiency is our goal, we provide power-up tools for moving along. Copy Entry takes this data and make a copy. Change the date, copy again. You’re flying through a week!

Choosing Equipment

What happens if you do have an operator and equipment together like Billy Bob on his big yellow truck? Well, we go onto the next section and pick the equipment. Done. It knows the hours. And Billy Bob and his truck are entered in one effort.

Materials

And if Billy Bob put culvert or gravel in his truck from your yard or inventory? Make that selection and move on.

Summary

Here’s your summary. We’ve built a single record describing work. Billy Bob, or Brad, as my examples show, worked 2 hours of Overtimes on the 30^th of August and he was driving Truck number 5. The total value of this entry is: $141.44.

Don’t Take Shortcuts

Data entry of labor is an on-going task. I am going to make a pitch for doing it in the most detailed fashion possible. Shortcuts often backfire, more often backfire. If you have a time-keeping system that can accurately show the eligible work, the employee, date and work description that also uses the fringe rate, then you are way ahead of most. Some systems and some Wizards can make this happen. It has to follow the same rules and be 100% accurate. If done well, you can do data entry into Tempest-GEMS in batches. Just click “Add Expense” and select your expense type as “Force Account”.

90% of the people I have seen use this trick end up with rejected entries. In April 2020, the OIG published negative findings from Puerto Rico about the water and sewer agency. They took shortcuts that resulted in massive losses.

Let’s move forward. We need to report labor costs. FEMA has standard reports for this process. I’ll list them and show a picture of Tempest-GEMS reports. This is under the grants reports menu. FEMA Force Account Labor Record, FEMA Force Account Equipment Record, FEMA Force Account Material Record, and the Force Account Consolidated Record. The first three are bog-standard FEMA reports – been around for decades.

Our favorite and recommend report is the Force Account Consolidated Record. This report clearly shows that the labor, equipment, and material are linked. The reviewers and auditors have an easy time seeing that Billy Bob is on his big yellow truck. Or Brad is working 2 hours on Green River Rd in Truck 5 which has FEMA cost code of 8720 and he had no materials in his truck.

If you do not have to report operator and equipment, as is likely with the COVID-19 disaster, the FEMA Force Account Labor record is more concise.

For reporting labor costs, you will need detailed labor records – as shown and generated from Tempest-GEMS – or another tool.

And you will need the detailed payroll records. You’ll need the worklogs that demonstrate the work fit within the scope of the grant. You’ll need the payroll reports and information showing the full costs of the payroll. And you’ll need some sort of proof of payment. FEMA varies on this a bit. Best to have it. Some banks or payroll companies provide ACH summaries. Get these scanned and uploaded to Tempest-GEMS. You can upload as “grant documents” – label it well so the reviewers know this pile is for the pay period X to Y. Or you can upload the entire thing on the first data entry point for the pay period. I tend to use the grant document process. It’s easier to see.

Request for Reimbursement

If you are an applicant in a state where Tempest-GEMS is the official system, then you’re in luck. You’ll make your request for reimbursement within the system. It is called a Request. We’ll cover this in another episode.

For others, your Request for Reimbursement process will be dictated by your state. Typically, it involves a cover letter on letter head. The letter states: “We’d like some money please and we’ve got these documents to support our claim.”

Then you bundle up your documents.

A little warning: FEMA does not accept thumb-drive or USB memory sticks. Many states do not either. Most email systems will prevent emailing attachments with more than 25mb. So in this world people still burn CDs with data, and hopefully your state has this problem solved for you.

Force Account Reimbursement

Reporting labor, equipment, and material costs involves several components. First, the work you report must fall within the performance dates for your grant. Second, the work described must match the grant-funded mission. Tempest-GEMS helps with these tasks.

Then you need to report the eligible hours and calculate labor costs using your fringe rates for the staff – a number that is higher than your payrates.

If you have equipment, then you normally have to show that it also has an operator with the exception of generators, pumps, and light-sets. If it has a seat, windshield, or a handle, FEMA will most likely expect to see an operator.

Force account reimbursement can also reimburse you for materials used from your inventory. Tempest-GEMS links these three together in reports designed by FEMA.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Labor Reporting Guide to help you get started with FEMA Quest.

Labor Reporting Guide

FEMA Grant Accounting Basics: Setting Up for Labor, Equipment & Material Cost Reporting

14 May 2020 by Christina Moore

Setting Up for Cost Reporting

Do this task once and access the data hundreds to thousands of times, depending upon your grant. It’s a huge timesaver AND maximizes your reimbursement. We’ll take a closer look at Tempest-GEMS and the features you’ll use during the early phases of the FEMA public assistance grant program lifecycle. We aim to show grant management best practices using grant management software.

The FEMA Grants Portal

Today on the 19^th of April 2020, Patriot’s Day in Boston where I was born, I think of what it takes to pull together to overcome adversity. In the recent weeks, we see evidence of conflict and confusion – even within this ensconced process of the FEMA public assistance grant program. We’ll take a look at this together. I observed my own attitudes flipping between the anxiety and worry of No-Timer and the longer view taking by the Old Warrior. Back in the Olden Days, FEMA managed public assistance with electronic spreadsheets. It is not a good solution, but it worked. Spreadsheets destroy collaboration. Millions of problems with version control. There are typos and math problems.

A few years ago, FEMA developed the Grants Portal as a tool to help applicants complete their grants application. This also aids FEMA in reducing their labor costs. FEMA can pool staff to an office to write the scope and step through the approval processes. It’s hugely expensive for FEMA to put human being into communities devastated by disasters. And it increases risks too.

The Grants Portal is not a grant management system designed for the State or applicants. It is a means to complete a grant application in the wake of (or in the middle of) a disaster.

Working Together

Tempest-GEMS is a grants management software that is used by states and by applicants. We built this tool to serve long-term goals such as reimbursement of funds; guidelines on procurement execution; score cards on documentation status. We aim to prevent you from having unsupported costs and give you tools to identify potential duplicate costs. The target for grant management is a successful closeout and recovery of all possible money within the framework of the law and grant rules.

Tempest-GEMS, while it can be bought and provided by a federal agency, is normally provided by a state or territory, or bought by an applicant.

Software serves the needs of the owner. It is not an us or them, “tastes great / less filling” argument. The two systems are not competing. They do different jobs differently.

But in the early days, it can feel like that there are two systems needing data. FEMA Grants Portal works with you to get a completed application and a grant awarded with funds obligated. No grant, no money.

Tempest-GEMS take the long view on close out and reimbursements with guidance on policies.

Two players on the same team.

Assessing the Early Steps

Tempest-GEMS’ strengths:

One: Our software excels at calculating force account labor, equipment, and material costs. Nothing beats us on this process. We generate PDF forms designed by FEMA.

Two: Our software excels at guiding you through the contracting process and helping you identify steps and documents for each.

You have a decision to make. You decide when to start using Tempest-GEMS. Immediately or later. We’ll come back to that in a bit.

To help you assess these early steps, we are going to examine the first steps you’ll take in Tempest-GEMS such as: the employee roster with fringe rates; equipment lists; material lists.

If it were me… I’d use each tool to their strength. I’d capture data in Tempest-GEMS early. I’d need it there for my close out. Tempest-GEMS generates the forms and data needed for the portal. I’ll pull reports from Tempest-GEMS to upload to the portal. And keep working in Tempest-GEMS. Eventually, when the grant is awarded, I’ll make sure that my draft and the final get merged. Then I’ll keep moving!

Force Account Reporting

Cat B grants that fund emergency protective measures tend to involve significant force account labor. The Grants Portal, and the state’s reimbursement process requires accurate and detailed force account labor, equipment, and material reporting.

Labor costs are based on fringe rates as the “FEMA billing rate” and the hours dedicated to completing tasks within the scope of the grant. Sometimes these hours are limited to just overtime. So the hours are a subset of all hours worked. And the billing rate is not the payrate. This means you can’t just hand FEMA your payroll records. You must take additional steps to calculate your labor costs.

Equipment costs must correspond to FEMA equipment schedule authorized for the disaster – typically a year or two prior. They adjust the rates based on fuel costs and inflation. Equipment has a 4 digit code and a pre-determined billing rate.

Databases do this sort of work better than spreadsheets. Why? Databases excel as data integrity with lookups, supporting simultaneous users collaborating. Spreadsheets are a distant second place. PDF forms should not even be in play!

In “How to Prepare to Receive Emergency Funds”, we discussed calculating the Fringe Rate. If you missed that, please go take a look. Also the FEMA PAPPG (“public assistance program policy guide”) provides minimal help but it is defined there.

Employee Rosters

Tempest-GEMS needs your employee roster. Best if this is exported directly from your payroll systems. DO NOT provide social security numbers – or any portion thereof. Do not provide dates of birth. Do not provide home address. Just first name, last names, employee ID number, and the various rates. Storm Petrel provides an upload template in Excel format. Export from your payroll system as a CSV, make the adjustments for rates and format it to match our template. We’ll provide that template in the links, on our website and in our knowledge base.

Your data must be presented to us in our format or we’ll kick it back. We provide the upload service for free. We’re not going to shift your columns around. If you get the columns lined up we can upload hundreds of staff members quickly.

Employee Profile

Let’s take a look at the Employee profile in Tempest-GEMS. Very basic stuff: first name, last names, ID, title, department, exempt/non-exempt, and an unlimited number of rates. No protected confidential information please!

Employee Data Entry Page

We’ll click in and look at the data entry page. Same information, just in a neat web-form. Tab between the fields, or click with your mouse. Blue buttons save and move you through. Red buttons delete. Green buttons add, and grey buttons are benign actions like cancel or back.

Employee Rates

The important bit here are the rates. Tempest-GEMS can accommodate an unlimited number of employee rates. We suggest tagging them with the year to help track raises and such. And yes, if you look at that, the OT and Regular rates look close together. This is because the regular rate is loaded up with fringe costs such as holidays, and benefits. The OT rate has fewer burdens on it, so they come close together.

Applicant Documents

In addition to the Employee Roster, you’ll want to upload key documents such as the fringe rate calculations, personnel policies, overtime policies, and union contracts. These are “Applicant Document” – which means it gets shared with all grants.

Before jumping to the next topic, we’ll take a look at the FEMA Employee Payroll Data report. You’ll find this under grants then grant reports on the menu to the left in the blue. You hit generate, boom, you’re done. Ready to upload to the Grants Portal, or ready to submit as part of your reimbursement packet.

Equipment

We’ll look at equipment now. Traditionally, the FEMA equipment schedule emphasizes stuff needed during weather-based disasters. We’ll see what guidance they have for COVID-19 and the medical equipment. Local government is using equipment during this disaster: police, fire, EMS, digging equipment, refrigerated trucks, and modalities as needed for testing sites, clinics, popup hospitals, and morgue services.

Equipment setup is under the Applicant Menu. The result of your work will link your equipment to the correct FEMA Equipment Rate schedule, tag it with the FEMA Cost Code. And you’ll be ready to print the perfect FEMA Equipment Inventory report for your upload.

FEMA Equipment Schedule & Inventory

The first step is the selection the FEMA Equipment Schedule designated for your disaster. Second, you’ll use our software to find the right item. Type in an Army-style or Government-style – kinda backwards such as Truck, dump. Or just search “dump”. You’ll need to select the line that best matches your equipment. If it isn’t precise, select the smaller one. OIG will ding you for picking the larger one. They did that for Puerto Rico Sewers (PRASA).

This data entry is fast and efficient. It is best that your team does it. Selecting the match is a business decision you make.

FEMA Equipment Inventory Report

When done, you’ll print the FEMA Equipment Inventory which is shown. This is found under the Grants – Grant Reports menu. Make the PDF and upload to the Grants Portal. Another step towards your grant award and a step towards close out!

Tempest-GEMS Guideposts

Part of Tempest-GEMS job is to provide you with guideposts. We want you to expertly know how to manage disaster relief grants. We’ve spent a few minutes discussing the setting up your environment to work along side of the FEMA Grants Portal. Tempest-GEMS is fast and accurate at doing labor and equipment costs. If you do that data entry here, you can export the FEMA reports and do summary data entry in the FEMA Grants Portal.

Let’s take a look at a guidepost. This one informs you about the status of your Applicant data. Here we can see that this Applicant is missing the FIPS code. Oh, and there’s no contact people. Without contact people for the Applicant, the email notification process won’t work.

Below this is a summary of the Applicant’s data; number of employees and equipment. That sort of thing.

Printing FEMA Reports

We’re not engaged in a binary argument with FEMA systems. We work along side,e ach system to their own strength. Our Tempest-GEMS is amazing at close out, compliance, document tracking and financial tracking. We are fast and accurate for calculating labor costs.

Additionally, our data prints on FEMA reports. This make it fast and easy to upload to the FEMA grants portal.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Hints and Hacks to help you along your FEMA Quest.

FEMA Quest Hints & Hacks

FEMA Small Grants: Are They For You?

12 May 2020 by Christina Moore

FEMA Small Grants

Find out why you really don’t love small grants, but think you do, and avoid the pitfalls. FEMA small grants fall within a special set of rules. It permits a simplified effort with grant management best practices. A FEMA public assistance small grant seems very attractive but may cause problems long term. You decide as we examine the topic in detail. Walking Small trail on the FEMA Quest map is easier than the rough terrain, hazards, and effort of Large grants.

We are providing these materials to you hoping that you can help your community, your organization survive this disaster and wisely execute the mission before you. If you appreciate this presentation, please share it.

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Public Assistance Small Grants Defined

FEMA Public Assistance Small Grants are defined within the Stafford Act and are intended to be a simple, easy way through the process. In 2020, they are capped at $130,000. The number varies. In 2011, the value was about $65,000. Writing a grant costs FEMA money. A few years ago, FEMA estimated the easiest grant to write cost a minimum of $5,000. The Small Grant starts and finishes with the grant application in the FEMA Grants Portal. You supply everything that is needed. You land at $130,000 or less. Your state sends you a check. You are told to keep your documentation available for a while. You’re done. The grant close out process and grant application process were combined to a single effort by FEMA.

But! But, you can’t go back. A Large Grant, those over the threshold allow for the grant size and grant scope to have flexibility. You may request changes. It is intended to cover the costs of your project or mission – y’know within the normal rules for reimbursement.

Drawbacks to Small Projects

The application process for a small grant and large grant are the same. FEMA has been combining projects recently – that’s them doing their thing. FEMA will take your information from one or more applications and generate one or more grants.

Sometimes, FEMA combines several grant applications or projects into one large grant with a series of “site sheets” or sub-projects. This is clever. Separate projects and separate scopes and separate budgets, but within the confines of a Large Project. Hey, if something is off, go make an adjustment. Make a Request of the state to change the dates, add or subtract dollars, modify the scope.

Here’s why I don’t like small projects. You’re done. You got a grant for $100,000 for your activities. Then two months later, you see that you missed the fire department payroll and the police department payroll. And the electronic signs and the 500 cones you bought.

Those are all your costs now. You missed them.

Benfits of Small Grants

The benefits of the small grant. So, what if you miss a dollar here or there? You’re done. Tracking these expenses and uploading documents costs money and time. While FEMA does provide funding for grant management, the trade-off may benefit you. Miss a dollar, gain hours. Yay for you.

It is like a Sunday stroll down Small Trail on the FEMA Quest Map. It’s practically paved!

Small Projects & Tempest-GEMS

So what about Tempest-GEMS and small grants? Me, I’d skip them. But I have entered a few times. Sometimes by entering them in addition to the large projects, I see the whole picture better. It is personal preference. Yes, the law says that you must keep the documents for years. And Tempest-GEMS can do that reliably.

FEMA Public Assistance Small projects fall below a threshold which is $130,000 in April 2020. You do your close out when you do the application in the Grants Portal or with your paper submission.

If you missed money you don’t get to go back to the window and ask for more.

If the money you got is a few dollars more than the actual costs. You keep that.

And you don’t have to spend hours per week keeping up with the long-term grant management effort. That’s a win.

You weight the pluses and minuses. If your aggregated costs are about $100,000 you may not have much of a choice. If your costs are creeping up and past that point, know your options.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Guide to small projects to help you on your FEMA Quest.

Guide to Small Projects

The Role of States in the FEMA Grant Process

6 May 2020 by Christina Moore

Grant Administration Best Practices

Ensure visibility of your grant recipients’ progress and reduce your administrative burden using one simple, inexpensive tool. We’ll define the difference between grant administration and grant management and take a look at the role of states in the FEMA grant process. Join us as we explore, grant administration best practices using grant management software.

Why Grant Administration Matters

Grant Administration versus grant management, what is the difference? In the context of Tempest-GEMS, Grant Administration describes the tasks taken on by the state-team. Partnered with FEMA the state-team evaluates and approves (or denies) requests from the state’s applicants. For example, grant administrators make the first-pass determinations of applicant eligibility when RPAs are submitted. State grant administrators undertake the work involved with detailed document validation and financial validation processes. Grant administrators review and approve of reimbursement requests. And grant administrators take the lead on the grant close out process.
Tempest-GEMS is a cloud-based, or SAAS, grant management software application. It has a set of tools for the grant applicants, in a module we call “Grant Execution” – as it helps applicants execute their mission. The state has its own module called “Grant Administration”. This module provide a wide view of the entire grant program and it had the ability to zoom into any grant and examine those details.

The primary purpose is providing WorkFlows for the state team. When a Request from an applicant comes in, Tempest-GEMS emails notifications, and provides a unified and consistent process for evaluating the applicant’s documents and scoring the related financial data. It is in the Grant Administration module that the state walks a grant through the lifecycle from reimbursement to closeout. Simple grant administration is our goal, but we must fall within the parameters of state policy and federal guidelines.

Walking through Grant Administration

Only authorized users get access to the Grant Administration modules. Those without access can not even see it on the menu… but we can. This menu is in the upper right near the help button. There are a lot of state users who keep both module open at the same time. They review applicant data in the Grant Execution Module while keeping an eye on the queues and status in the Grant Administration Module.

Just like the grant management module, we help you identify your immediate status with dashboards. The dashboard setups for states can be varied to suite your needs. What is important to you should be visible with a click.

WorkFlows

The WorkFlows are trigged following a Request made by an Applicant. A WorkFlow is a series of actions, or steps, undertaken by the Grant Administration team. The state is welcome to ask for customized Workflows. We provide a lot of flexibility. The core elements involve the queue – the list of Requests from Applicants. These can be sorted, prioritizes, and all of the cool things you’d expect from good software. I am showing an example of a Request queue.

Request for Reimbursement Queue

And now an example of the Request for Reimbursement Queue with its associated approval levels.

WorkFlows tend to include a Document Validation and a Financial Validation process as shown here. State! You can do some cool stuff here in your workflows – adjust approval levels, require two financial review if over some threshold. Its your system.

Validations

The document validation process involves two processes: confirmation and completeness. During the confirmation round, the evaluator confirms that each document is as it says it is. If it says: I am a fringe rate calculation, then it ought to be exactly that and not a picture of Boris Badenof. The evaluator scores: pass/fail. When there is a failure, the review leaves a comment that is entirely visible to the applicant. We keep track of the historic scores per document. We walk the evaluator through the process on document at a time. And yes, we can do all or a statistical random selection of the documents – as you wish.

Completeness Check

The completeness check compares documents uploaded against standard master lists. If an applicant has done a competitive bid, then there should be eleven documents, at least. So, where are the gaps or where are the successes? The evaluator scores that: pass or return – with some comments and suggestions. One of the master lists we have is the close out list. Each time through, the evaluator can assess progress – and provide guidance.

Financial Validation Process

In the financial validation process, the evaluator looks at the expense data in a read-only mode as shown. They are expected to download the attached documents and compare them. Do the documents support the costs with an invoice and proof-of-payment? If so, are the costs in scope? Are they reasonable and necessary? They give a pass or fail. They also determine whether all, some, or none is eligible for reimbursement. The system keeps the running tally.

The financial validation process can be used for a 100% review or a statistically random selection.

Keep Moving Forward

DHS OIG often review the public assistance grant program years after a disaster and finds that states did not provide sufficient controls or give guidance to applicants. Tempest-GEMS mitigates this concern. The software provides guidance on financial tracking. It provides guidance on procurement compliance. It provides scorecards on document status and progress. And the quality assurance process involving document validation and financial validation add to this process of monitoring and controls. You’re doing your applicants a great service by providing a system that helps all parties.

A Call-and-Response Effort

The Request and WorkFlow process is a call-and-response effort between the Applicant making the Request and the Grant Administrator stepping through the WorkFlow. This is the rhythm of the shared work. In the meanwhile, the grants progress towards closeout.

Financial Quality Assurance

Every action undertaken by a user in Tempest-GEMS involve detailed audit trails. Users can typically see who entered something and who last updated it. Behind the scenes, we track just about every change by everyone. It permits our technical team to aid you in recovering from mistakes. It helps us recover if we have a glitch. And it is a constant reminder that we are all stewards of federal grant funds. A shenanigan-free zone.

Document Quality Assurance

As the state grant administrators progress through their reviews, validations and approvals, Tempest-GEMS locks data. If an applicant uploads an invoice for reimbursement, the state team reviews it. That automatically locks it. Can’t touch it again. Grant administration best practices using grant management software, like Tempest-GEMS, makes for simple grant administration.

Federal Grant Management

Of course, Tempest-GEMS does the calculation of State reimbursement costs and the FEMA reimbursement levels. It keeps track of all of that. It helps complete all sort of federal forms like the SF-424 and SF-425.

Federal grant management is complex enough and we all want simple grant management. Tempest-GEMS takes us as close as possible. We want to Rebuild Better. The state-team, also called Grant Administrator have robust tools for monitoring and controlling the grant management process. They provide detailed oversight of the applicants while also providing clear guidance and features.

A key element on the state-side of Tempest-GEMS include workflows. These can be customized by the state. They tend to include document validation and financial validation processes.

We are providing you a State Administrators guide This serves as reminder to avoid pitfalls along the quest.

State Administrators Guide

Simple Grant Management with Tempest-GEMS

30 April 2020 by Christina Moore

Every expense documented. Every dollar you deserve. Every risk mitigated. Easily and accurately manage your grant documentation, maximize reimbursement and minimize grant management burden with one simple tool. That tool is Tempest-GEMS. This post discusses grant management best practices using grant management software.

An Overview of Tempest-GEMS

Simple grant management is an awesome goal but when getting disaster assistance from FEMA under the Stafford Act, you’ll find that you must work within federal policies and practices as directed by 2CFR200. We built Tempest-GEMS to simplify the process as much as possible. Using grant management software should guide you through the lifecycle, help with labor calculations, and coordinate actions with the state grants administration team.

Here is a quick overview of Tempest-GEMS. Each key feature of the grant management software will be covered in separate brief episodes. We will link the operation of the software to grant management process, and we’ll reference back to our FEMA Quest Game, the Hazards and Challenges.

Tempest-GEMS turbos your way through a grant: dollars, documents, and data. We have guideposts to help navigate through the terrain. We use scorecards to give feedback. It is more than just efficient data entry and a centralized place to store documents.

DHS OIG

According to analysis done on DHS OIG data, 75% of applicants experience failure with the FEMA PA program. This series has endeavored to illustrate the hazards and challenges along your Quest. To review, they are failure to execute or document procurement well; failure to provide supporting documentation for expenses; mistakes with math and duplicate costs.

Guidepost

What do you want out of a system?

You want a system that expertly guides you through the rough terrain and the risks that are in front of you and your team. It does require work. We strive to eliminate keystrokes and clicks. We cannot eliminate the process of doing data entry on financial information and you must upload scanned PDF documents. Thankfully, there is funding for this process. States get funding from FEMA for this process. So do grant applicants. Rules from the recent years permit 4% of the grant funds for grant management costs. And FEMA kicks in another 1% for management costs when the grant is closed out. These funds pay for labor, materials, and software (oh, like ours).

During the recent years, we have been paving the path, put up guideposts, enhance our scorecards, and graphics to help you navigate the process with confidence.

Tempest-GEMS Dashboard

The dashboard immediately informs you of the program name, grant type and critical dates.

What are the two most important questions:

How much have we spent?
How much have we been reimbursed?

Here it is: DR-4022-VT Hurricane Irene. This is a FEMA public assistance grant from 2011. And yes, this is real data in here. There have been $2.6 million in expenses and $2.2 million in reimbursements or revenue. The unreimbursed value is $386,000 which represents about 85%.

This grant program, for this disaster involves six grants.

Graphs

You want your red (expenses) and green (revenue) to be as equal as possible – depending on the disaster and state rules this may vary from 75% to over 90%.

As we roll down the page, we see a bit more detail. I’ll pause here as we roll through a few illustrations slowly. Cash flow – you want your blue line as close to zero as possible.

Grant Summary

Let’s zoom into the grant summary. The grant you have selected is highlight in green, it has a checkmark, and it is in the light-blue band at the top. You’ll always know where you are.

Grants Menu

We organized the menu on the left to show you the basic flow of daily work. You’ll be coming in, selecting a grant, checking your Score Card, uploading documents and entering financial transactions. When working with contracts, you’ll upload contract documents and assess your Contract status with the Contract Score Card.

This post is not a deep dive onto any one topic but provide enough of an overview to show how we’ve built software to support you.

Grants Score Card

Let’s take a look at the grant score card. Green checks are good. Red Exes are bad, and so are the Yellow triangles, too, they are just less-bad. On day one, you may see a page of Red Exes. As the process matures and time passes, your Score Card ought to start looking good.

The Virtual Binder

Grant Administrators, don’t miss the next episode! I’ll show you how to ensure visibility of your grant recipients’ progress and reduce your administrative burden using one simple, inexpensive tool. And grant managers, if you’re struggling with the efficacy of your administrators’ processes, check this out and give them some solutions!

Documents are just about the most important product of the grant lifecycle. Documents provide proof that you done did the stuff you were supposed to have done. In Tempest-GEMS, we proudly say the first document you upload is your first step to close out! When you have a document such as standards, fringe calculations or overtime policy, you upload that just once. It will appear on every grant!

Grant Documents

The system lets you download documents, shows you who has historically reviewed documents, and if a document is locked. Why locked? Locked indicates the State has seen, reviewed and approved of the document.

We use documents in the Virtual Binder to keep score of your progress. We have a master list of all documents expected and required. As you upload, you get to measure progress. It’s like a game. Each document up is a point scored.

Tempest-GEMS also includes detailed financial tracking. It looks like an accounting system, but it isn’t. We don’t close quarters or years. We close grants.

We designed like a bankbook. Money in, money out; how much, when; to whom, date paid, AND we keep track of the invoices and proof-of-payments. You’ll see a “docs” column. One and more is good. Zero tends to be less-good. Each expense needs those too little PDFs – invoice and proof-of-payment.

Editing Expense Transactions

When you open a transaction to edit it, by clicking on the little pencil, the insides look just like popular accounting systems. But what do we do differently?

Let’s roll down.

We link or attach the supporting document directly to the transaction. Like glue, stuck and stuck good. This is a reviewer’s dream. The State Grant Administration team can see this on their side of the system. You’ll get a passing mark if all ties together. Well done!

Contract Scorecard

In our other posts, we’ve really driven home the importance of procurement compliance. We provide you a pathway to success. We are showing the contract scorecard. This not only shows the eleven steps needed for the competitive bid process, it also shows you the underlying federal law, and informs you how many documents have been uploaded for each element. If you have an advertisement, scan it, post it, get the point.

This example doesn’t do so well with all of those zeroes. Upload is your job. Guidance is ours.

We’ll button up this overview episode with a quick look at Requests. Requests are your means of interacting with the state grant administrators. It is here you press the button to say: I want a reimbursement. Each request walks you through a wizard of a few steps. When done, you click submit. No more emailing. No more losing documents. No shipping docs to the state.

The state team see what your documents through the same tools. When they review your financial transactions and your documents, they get locked. You can track their progress and approvals through this same feature. This is how the call-and-response between applicants and states is handled.

Yes, of course Tempest-GEMS email notifications to the various parties. And on the State side, they have queues. And reports that tell them was is out there, how long it has been there and the disposition of each.

Closeout on Tempest-GEMS

We’ve taken a few quick looks at Tempest-GEMS. It is a web-based application, often called SAAS or Software-as-a-service. There is nothing to download to make it work. It runs right from any modern browser via the internet. The connections are secured end-to-end.

We want to help you understand how to manage disaster relief grants. You have very specific challenges and hazards. Tempest-GEMS uses menus, score cards, and dashboards to keep you on track. We’ve streamlined the data entry and document upload process.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab Tempest-GEMS overview guide to help you get started with your FEMA Quest.

Tempest-GEMS Overview Guide

Building Your Disaster Relief Grant Management Team: The 6 Players You Don’t Want On Your Team

30 April 2020 by Christina Moore

Building Your Disaster Relief Grant Management Team

Today, we will learn to avoid the grant trolls: 6 players you don’t want on your team. Building your disaster relief grant management team requires that you identify the trolls you do not want nearby. The bad-buys muddle the definitions of FEMA grant dos and don’ts. At their best, trolls bring distraction and confusion. At their worst, they put you in jail.

The Babble of Bad Guys

Every Quest involves difficult terrain, shifting environments, a strong team of allies, and the babble of bad guys who toss obstacles and hazards on your path. They are part of every landscape and every society. We’ve created identification cards for these guys to help you rapidly spot them. This cast of characters includes the following:

No-timer, Spinner, Badger – the bad-one, Fobbit, Jafo, and the Felon. We have pictures and definitions for each that you can download from the links below or show notes.

Avoiding the No-Timer

No-timer is so easy to identify. No-Timer informs all that there is no time. Doing something now is better than doing something right. This troll says: Right-now is the only way forward. No-Timer insists that the standard rules don’t apply. This situation is so different than any prior situation that we can just do what is needed, now.

No-Timers have a special power – they turn process into chaos. A team working through steps 1, 2, 3 are instructed to skip that, ignore process, and just do this now!

The worst No-Timer is one who is in charge. A loud and authoritative No-Timer is so difficult to deal with. No-Timer’s ears are so filled with the sound of alarm and urgency, that they just can’t hear the importance of triage, prioritization, and the value of logical steps. A No-Timer can accidently run a team out of cash, run people into jail cells, and not see the self-harm.

How do you combat No-Timer? It is tough. You’ve got facts on your side. In upcoming episodes, we’ll show you the reports from the Office of Inspector General. A printed report, a calm voice, and a blue-and-white document shows how FEMA claws back millions every year for mistakes made of haste and ignorance.

Avoiding the Spinner

Who is Spinner? Every cop, firefighter, and EMT/paramedic knows Spinner. This is that person you see at an emergency scene. They walk in tight circle repeating the same words over and over and over and over. It is a very common human reaction to stress, oddly it is also a common symptom of head trauma in little kids too. Too often their recitation is of the minutes or seconds before the event paying in a loop in their head.

This Spinner appears in meetings and throughout the disaster recovery process. They are not evil-doers on purpose, forgive me for putting them next to No-Timer and Felon. On the bad-side, they pull resources and focus away from the mission. Stress is very real. People’s behavior regress into younger, even child-like actions. These people need care and feeding and management. They are wounded humans.

You’ll need to develop skills to identify then either help or isolate these people from your mission-focused grant management team. If you fail to recognize the Spinner, you’ll find that your progress and process will crumble gradually.

Go to jail, do not collect $200. No, this isn’t Monopoly. It’s the part of grant management most people ignore—procurement and reporting of expenses. However, this is where the most risk lives. In the next episode, we show you how to mitigate the risks simply.

Avoiding the Jafo

Jafo came in from the cold, or the heat, or the rain, or the sun, or the snow. They’ll tell you that they are doing something super important. Or maybe that they are super important. They talk about their adventures and their missions and trials going on elsewhere. We know this critter from his name: Just Another … Observer. But Jafo sits on the desk or spreads out on a table nearby.

Grant management work involves detailed work, precise follow through, and focus. Here’s Jafo suggesting that indoor work ain’t real work. People sitting at desks with monitors are not performing magic that keeps the cash flowing.

How to you handle a Jafo? I have seen it done in operations centers that house thousands of people in open spaces. People build barriers. There is nothing like a cactus plant to prevent a human being from plopping their dirty-butt on a desk. Wizards and Millers who work in such conditions know to starve the spaces nearby. There is no visitor chair and a noise-cancelling headset are fine deterrents.

Avoiding the “Bad” Badger

Here comes the Badger again. This one looks just like the last one. Same polo shirt and same plastic badge around the neck or hanging at the waist. This badger does not know policy. This badger fails at being an advocate for people like us. Grant policy and federal administrative law includes some flexibility because situations and organizations vary.

Grants are provided to organizations and communities to help. Balancing intent with gentle coaching is the mark of a good Badger. The bad Badger is obstructive and at the worst abusive. If you haven’t met this critter yet, you will. That little plastic badge ennobles this troll with presumed authority. The bloody Badger is often wrong too. That’s the horrible part.

Wrong, loud and with an official badge, ugh. What to do? You have a team. Use your team. Ask Wonk to find a pathway. Ask Scribner to write some email and briefs. Bring the knowledge of policy and law to your team. They are your laws too. The rules are the leveler in this game of FEMA Quest.

We are providing you a Bad Guy identification guide. This serves as reminder of who to avoid and give you hints on solving problems. Click the links below to download this guide

Avoiding the Felon

The Felon is just another critter on the path. You must identify them quickly. Oh, the best Felons, swindlers, con-artists can be so disguised. The 11-steps of the competitive procurement process exist to prevent Felon from winning. Why is the sole-source procurement so distrusted? Because it has been so abused. You can’t take federal grant funds and channel them to your family’s bank accounts or your own. That’s a direct route to jail.

In 2012, I had 2 federal agents knock at my front door in Southern Vermont. Our house is miles from pavement and deep on a 100-acre place. They flashed their credentials and presented with stiff formality. I recognized them instantly whilst greeting them with a breezy familiarity. Come on in, I said. I offered refreshment and invited them right into my home office. I assumed it was another friend going through an in-depth background check. I lived, worked, and played in that world a long time. My jaw dropped when they told me that were investigating felony fraud of a FEMA staffer who was known to me. This Felon redirected funds from his government issued credit card directly into his bank accounts with some slight of hand. Oh, and he was my FEMA liaison. And he’d work in my house at my desk with me.

The lesson, I missed the identification. His felony did not impact our recovery process. We stayed on the straight and narrow. That fellow went to jail. My community got all of their money.

In short, Felons are bad. Missteps with federal funds will land you in jail. Done.

Be Wary of Fobbit

Let’s close our Troll identification process with a look at the Fobbit.

The Fobbit is a wanna-be warrior who never left the forward operating base or FOB. They want you to think they have the requisite experience and skills. Maybe they do? Maybe they don’t. Who knows? A few too many war-stories that start with the same line: When I worked Katrina dot dot dot.

The Old Warrior may say something similar, then the next time through, mentions Sandy or some odd experience in Iowa managing the bizarre process of disposal of farm animals resulting from a wide-spread animal disease. An Old Warrior will have experience in a few FEMA regions, and a few FEMA administrators. The Old Warrior has perspective, scars, failures, and a sense of humility.

The Fobbit is a bit too sure. Trust but verify.

Avoiding the Grant Trolls

We’ve got six trolls to avoid and manage during our Quest. Some will distract and drive a team to failure and possible jail by not listening to anything but alarm bells, that’s No-Timer. Some just pull resources and focus by regressing into behavior that resembles a top. Hello Spinner. The Jafo annoys the productive team and too often undervalues the efforts of the back-office.

The bad Badger uses authority of a plastic badge to obstruct and obfuscate. The Felon can be the hardest to recognize and the most dangerous. They sell bad as good and make it sound great. The last critter is the Fobbit, with a touch of borrowed valor and exaggerated background, this critter may not be worth listening too, but might be.

Your defense against the bad guys is your team, your increasing knowledge of the policy, and your steady progress on working the problems carefully and deliberately. You are as protected by the laws and rules as you are threatened by them.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Bad Guy Identification Guide to help you get started with FEMA Quest.

Bad Guy Identification Guide