Acronyms and Terms

Application Control Center
The area of the Department of Education [in the Grants and Contracts Service (defined below)] that is officially authorized to receive applications for discretionary grants and cooperative agreements

Application Notice
A notice published in the federal Register that invites applications for one or more discretionary grant or cooperative agreement competitions, gives basic program and fiscal information on each competition, informs potential applicants when and where they can obtain applications, and cites the deadline date (defined below), for a particular competition

Application Package
A package that contains the application notice for one or more programs and all the information and forms needed to apply for a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement

Appropriations Legislation
A law passed by the Congress to provide a certain level of funding for a grant program in a given year

Assurances
A listing of a variety of requirements, found in different federal laws, regulations, and executive orders that applicants agree in writing to observe as a condition of receiving federal assistance

Audit Funding
A conclusion about a monetary or nonmonetary matter related to an auditor's examination of an organization, program, activity, or function, which frequently identifies problems and provides recommendations for correction action in order to prevent their future recurrence

Audit Resolution Process
The process by which an auditor determines whether costs under a grant that have been identified in an audit report as questioned or unsupported are actually allowable or unallowable and initiates action to have recipients return unallowable expenditures

Audit Resolution Specialist
This department staff member reviews audit reports on recipients' projects and develops the proposed recommendations to management for settling cases of expenditures not allowed under discretionary grants or cooperative agreements; these recommendations become the basis for decisions issued in the program determination letter (defined below).

Authorizing Legislation
A law passed by the Congress that establishes or continues a grant program

Budget Period
An interval of time into which a project period is divided for budgetary purposes, usually 12 months

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA)
Publication and database produced by the General Services Administration that lists the domestic assistance programs for all federal agencies and gives information about a program's authorization, fiscal details, accomplishments, regulations, guidelines, eligibility requirements, information contacts, and application and award process

Certification
A statement, signed by an applicant or recipient as a prerequisite for receiving federal funds, that is (1) meets or will adhere to certain conditions and/or (2) will undertake or not undertake certain actions

CFDA Number
Identifying number for a federal assistance program, composed of a unique two letter prefix to identify the federal agency ("84" for the Department of Education, for example), followed by a period and a unique three-digit code for each authorized program.

Closeout
The process during which the funding agency determines that the recipient has performed all required work of a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement and undertakes all necessary administrative actions to make any final fiscal adjustments to a recipient's account

Code of Federal Regulations (CFR)
Compilation of all final regulations issued by federal agencies and published annually by the National Archives and Records Administration; divided into numbered "Titles" (Title 34 contains the regulations of the Department of Education, for example.)

Competitive Review Process
The process used by an agency to select applications for discretionary grants and cooperative agreements for funding and in which applications are scored by subject-area experts with the most highly scored applications are recommended for funding.

Continuation Grant
Additional funding awarded for budget periods following the initial budget period of a multi-year discretionary grant or cooperative agreement

Cooperative Agreement
A support mechanism used when there will be substantial federal scientific or programmatic involvement ("Substantial involvement" means that, after award, scientific or program staff will assist, guide, coordinate, or participate in project activities.)

Data Universal Number System Number
A unique nine-digit identification number required by the federal government to identify relation organizations that are receiving funding under grants and cooperative agreements to provide consistent name and address data for electronic gran application systems

Deadline Date
The date the funding agency must receive a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement application for it to be considered for funding

Discretionary Grant
An award of financial assistance in the form of money, or property in lieu of money, by the federal government to an eligible recipient, usually made on the basis of a competitive review process

EDGAR (Education Department General Administrative Regulations)
Administrative regulations governing Department of Education discretionary grant and cooperative agreement programs found in Parts 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, and 86 of Title 34 of the Code of federal Regulations (defined above); a book issued by the Department that contains a reprint of these regulations.

Employer Identification Number (EIN)
The number the Internal Revenue Service assigns to every employer, used by funding agencies as the basis for the entity number (defined below)

Federal Register
Daily compilation of federal regulations and legal notices, presidential proclamations and executive orders, federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other federal agency documents of public interest; prepared by the National Archives and Records Administration for public distribution by the Government Printing Office; publication of record for ED regulations.

Financial Report
A document the recipient sends to the funding agency showing the amounts and/or types of expenditures made under a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement

Formula Grant
A grant that the a federal agency is directed by Congress to make to recipients, the amount of which is established by a formula based on certain criteria (e.g., population) that are written into the legislation and program regulations

Funding Priorities
These are activities identified by the funding agencies in advance of a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement competition that applicants are asked to include in an application so as to receive preference in the review process; they include absolute priorities (the applicant must address them in order to be considered for funding), competitive priorities (the applicant can choose whether or not to address them and the application might receive additional points for doing so, depending how well the applicant addresses the priority), and invitational priorities (the applicant is encouraged to address the stated priorities, but the application does not receive extra points for doing so).

Grant Application Reviewer (Reviewer)
An individual who serves the funding agency by reviewing new discretionary grant and cooperative agreement applications, also referred to as "field reader" or "peer reviewer"

Grant Award Notification
Official document signed by the grants officer stating the amount and the terms and conditions of an award for a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement

Grant Program
A program of discretionary grants and/or cooperative agreements administered by a funding agency

Grants and Contracts Service (GCS)
The organizational unit that has authority for overseeing the funding agencies assistance (grants) and procurement (contracts) processes, holds responsibility for the related functions of establishing indirect cost rates and developing automated systems for processing grants and contracts

Grants Officer
The person who has the authority to award its discretionary grants and cooperative agreements and to establish or revise their terms and conditions

Grants Specialist
The staff person who reports to the grants officer and who negotiates discretionary grants and cooperative agreements and handles the details of administering them on a daily basis

Indirect Costs
Costs of an organization incurred for common or joint objectives, which cannot readily and specifically be identified with a particular grant project or other institutional activity

Monitoring
These are processes undertaken by funding agency staff members to review and evaluate specific aspects of a recipient's activities under a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement; they include (1) measuring a recipient's performance; (2) assessing a recipient's adherence to applicable laws, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the award; (3) providing technical assistance to recipients; and (4) assessing whether a recipient has made substantial progress.

Negotiation
Pre-award discussions conducted by funding agencies to establish the conditions and amount of a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement, based on recommendations from the cognizant Principal Office, a cost analysis of the applicant's budget, and a review of proposed activities

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
An announcement published in the federal Register (defined on the preceding page) of proposed new regulations or modifications to existing regulations, the first stage in the process of creating or modifying regulations

Obligation
An entry made by a federal grants officer that authorizes the Financial Operations Division to make payments to a recipient

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circulars
Administrative policy documents that give instruction to federal agencies on a variety of topics, including the administration of federal grants and cooperative agreements

Payment Identification Number (PIN)
A number which enables the recipient to draw down cash payments authorized by a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement award

Performance Report
A report of the specific activities the recipient of a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement has performed during the budget period or the project period

Program Officer
Program office staff person responsible for (1) developing program regulations, application notices, and application packages, (2) overseeing the review and ranking of applications submitted under their programs, (3) providing detailed funding recommendations for applications, (4) participating in negotiations, as necessary, (5) providing technical assistance to applicants and recipients, (6) monitoring funded projects, and (7) making recommendations to the about recipients' requests for revisions to project activities and budgets

Program Determination Letter (PDL)
An official written notice from an authorized management official to an audited recipient that sets forth the funding agency's decision on findings in an audit report, including all necessary actions and repayment of funds for which the recipient is responsible

Program Regulations
These are regulations that implement legislation passed by Congress to authorize a specific grant program; they include applicant and participant eligibility criteria, nature of activities funded, allowability of certain costs, selection criteria under which applications will be selected for funding, and other relevant information.

Project Period
This is the total amount of time (sometimes several years) during which the funding agency authorizes a recipient to complete the approved work of the project described in the application; project periods of more than one year are divided into budget periods.

PR/Award Number
The identifying number for a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement award, composed of seven parts (e.g., Department of Education award #H029A31234-01C):

1. Principal office designator (H)
2. CFDA numeric suffix of the program (029)
3. Alphabetic subprogram identifier (A)
4. Last digit of the fiscal year of the competition (3)
5. Unique application identifier (1234)
6. Fiscal year of the funding (01)
7. Sequential order of the most recent funding action in a Fiscal Year (C)

The first five parts remain the same throughout the life of the project period while the last two parts change by budget period.

Regulations
Federal rules of general applicability that are authorized by federal laws or other federal authority and contained in the Code of Federal Regulations.

Slate
The official list of recommended applicants and award amounts in a discretionary grant or cooperative agreement competition

Standard Form 424 or SF-424.
A standard grant application form, sometimes referred to as the application "cover page," used by federal agencies and automatically generated by Cayuse 424