“Rural Texans Serving Rural Texas”
Grant Consultation - Grant Application Assistance - Grant Administration
for Rural Cities and Counties
Infrastructure Improvements
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Economic
Development
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Planning
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Housing
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Neighborhood
Facilties
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Disaster Recovery
Raymond K. Vann & Associates, LLC, specializes
in providing administration services for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) projects. We are grant administrators,
not grant writers (see below). We provide all of the necessary services to keep your community in compliance with your
government contract.
As you already know, federal funds, especially
those which pass through state agencies, come with many strings attached. Our job is to take care of all the strings!
You already have enough to handle in the running of your City or County and you should not be punished for accepting a grant
that your community desperately needs.
Our
services include:
Preparing your grant application for funding and delivering
to funding agency
Assist with the determination of local needs
Advertise and conduct Public Hearing
Provide
consultation regarding which needs are eligible and most likely to be funded
Work with your engineer to determine project scope,
location and budget
Assisting with contracting review
Providing general
Project Compliance Management
File Management
Financial Management
Recording
Reporting
Processing Pay
Requests
Environmental Review
Real Property Acquisition/ URA (if needed)
Determine degree of need
Research Appraisal
District records
Assist
in determining just compensation amount
Prepare all agency required documents, forms and correspondences
Submit Acquisition Report
Construction
Labor Compliance Management
Issue prevailing Wage Rate Decision
Provide Labor Standards Packet
Conduct Labor
Standards Pre-Construction Conference
Receive and process Standard Weekly Payrolls
Conduct Wage Rate Interviews
Civil Rights
Compliance
Fair Housing
Equal Opportunity
Section 3
Section 504
Citizen Participation
Excessive Force
Audit Reporting
Prepare
or guide CPA in preparing Audit Certification Form
Submit Annual Audit Report as received from independent auditing firm
Submit Single
Audit (if required) as received from independent auditing firm
Prepare and Submit Agency Required Reports
Contract Close-out Assistance
Contract Monitoring Review Assistance
Review
files for completeness
Deliver files to monitor or attend monitoring visit if held on-site
Address any issues found during
monitoring visit (if any)
Basically, our job is to 1) get you the
money, 2) take care of all of the paperwork and requirements so that you can keep the money, and 3) get a positive result
at monitoring so that you can get more money! And most importantly, we do all of this with minimal interference in your
day-to-day community duties. We know that you need the grants, but do not want the additional work and headaches that
come with these grants. We are here to assume your grant burden.
Grant Administrators vs. Grant Writers
Finally, a word about grant administration versus grant writing. As was written in the opening paragraph
on this page, “We are grant administrators, not grant writers.” The summarized list of our services above
is what grant administrators do for a living. This is how we earn our paycheck. Grant writers, on the other hand,
typically find grants that they think will work for you, present the opportunity to you, write the grant application, and
then charge you a fee to do so. You may or may not receive the grant, but if you do, the grant writer is usually not
involved with the contract. Either way, the grant writer is paid and moves on.
At Raymond K. Vann & Associates, LLC, we do not offer grant writing services, but rather a long-lasting
administration relationship. We do prepare your CDBG-related grant applications for you at no charge. We do this
because we know that the grant applications are so in-depth, so time-consuming and so confusing that if we don’t provide
this service then you will probably not apply. We also know that most rural communities do not have a surplus of funds to
pay for expensive grant writing services. If you don’t apply, you won’t be funded. And if you are
not funded, then we have no chance to come to you later and ask for a job. Since we make our living by managing grants,
it’s in our best interest to offer this grant application preparation service to you at no cost.
Yes,
we realize that it is a gamble and that we may spend much time and money preparing your application with no certain benefit
to us. After all, not every grant application will get funded. In fact, depending on the region, usually less
than half of all the applications submitted in a region are funded. In addition, even if your application is funded,
you will go through a formal procurement process and very well may choose a different grant administration firm. We
hope not, but this is a risk we are willing to take.
