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Grants FAQ

The following Frequently Asked Questions are intended for grant recipients.  For questions regarding the Subrecipient Annual Report, see the Common SAR Questions page.

  1. Where can I find information about DUNS numbers and SAM registration?
  2. Why did I get a letter from the Department of Finance & Management?
  3. What is a subrecipient?  If I have a loan, am I a subrecipient?
  4. How do I know if I need a Single Audit?
  5. My organization gets an audit every year.  Is that a Single Audit?
  6. How do I find out whether or not my grant contains federal funds?
  7. What grant reports do subrecipients have to submit to the State?
  8. What do I do if I have questions about the Subrecipient Annual Report?
  9. What are the consequences for not filing the Subrecipient Annual Report when it is due?

1.  Where can I find information about DUNS numbers and SAM registration?
Visit the FAQ page of the federal Grants.gov website.  To register with SAM and for information about requesting a DUNS number, visit the Grants.gov registration page.

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2.  Why did I get a letter from the Department of Finance & Management?
Your organization has an open grant or loan from the State of Vermont that contains federal funds. You are therefore considered a “subrecipient” of the State of Vermont, and as a condition of your grant agreement, you must report whether or not your organization requires a Single Audit to the Department of Finance and Management annually. This letter is notice of that requirement, and is timed to coincide with the end of your fiscal year.

Per federal regulations (Uniform Guidance), if your organization requires a single audit, the granting agency of the State of Vermont must review your audit report to determine if it contains audit findings that affect the federal funds passed through the State.  The Subrecipient Annual Report is the manner in which the State of Vermont identifies which audit reports it needs to review.

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3.  What is a subrecipient?  If I have a loan, am I a subrecipient?
A Subrecipient is an organization who receives a grant or loan of federal funds from a non-federal organization, such as the State of Vermont. Subrecipients are also referred to as grant recipients or as grantees.  Per federal regulations, expenditures for projects covered by a federal loan are reportable in the same way as a grant.

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4.  How do I know if I need a Single Audit?
Your organization is required to have a single audit if it expends $750,000 or more in federal grant assistance during its fiscal year. This grant assistance may come directly from the Federal government, from the State of Vermont, or from another organization such as a non-profit organization, a university, a local Supervisory Union, etc. Your business manager, controller, treasurer or other financial official should compile federal expenditures from all sources and determine if you exceed the $750,000 threshold. It is for this reason that the Subrecipient Annual Report must be completed by the financial official in your organization who has access to grant information for the entire organization.

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5.  My organization gets an audit every year.  Is that a Single Audit?
Not necessarily. A Single Audit is specifically related to federal programs and must be conducted by a qualified auditor in accordance with federal regulations (Uniform Guidance) and Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards. The work involved in a single audit is in addition to that of a typical financial statement audit, though it may occur simultaneously. The auditor will often issue a separate single audit report, or will create a separate section of the financial statement audit report for the single audit portion. The single audit report will include a Schedule of Expenditure of Federal Assistance which summarizes all of your organization’s federal funds by CFDA# and also indicates the source of the federal funds. If your organization does not typically exceed the $750,000 single audit threshold ($500,000 in prior years), chances are you have a financial statement audit each year, and not a single audit.

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6.  How do I find out whether or not my grant contains federal funds?
If your grant came to you from a State of Vermont granting agency, Part 1 of your grant award document should disclose the source of funds. All federal grant awards issued from the State of Vermont must disclose the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number, federal agency, etc. in accordance with Agency of Administration Bulletin 5 and federal regulations. All grants listed at the end of Finance & Management’s annual letter to you are considered federal grants by the State of Vermont granting agency. If your grant award document contains CFDA information, it is considered a federally funded grant.  If after checking the grant award document you still have questions, please contact your granting agency directly.

If your grant came to you from another entity, such as a non-profit organization or an educational institution, you should review the grant agreement document.  If you have questions about grants from non-State of Vermont granting agencies, you must contact them directly since the State of Vermont has no record of these awards and cannot provide information about them.

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7.  What grants reports do subrecipients have to submit to the State?
Subrecipients must submit the Subrecipient Annual Report to the Department of Finance & Management within 45 days after their fiscal year ends.   State granting agencies also require other financial and programmatic reports submitted directly to them.  Those reports are separate from the Subrecipient Annual Report and those reports should not be submitted to the Department of Finance and Management.  If your grant agreement does not identify what reports are required, contact the granting agency directly.

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8.  What do I do if I have questions about the Subrecipient Annual Report?
Instructions for each section are found on the back of the report.  You can also go to Common SAR Questions for answers to many common questions.  If you need more help, please call or email the Finance & Management contact person listed on the letter you received.

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9.  What are the consequences for not filing the Subrecipient Annual Report when it is due?
Timely filing of these reports is a condition of your grant award and failure to do so will put you out of compliance with the terms of your grant agreement.  If the report is not received by the Department of Finance & Management by the due date, your organization will be placed in a delinquent status. Once in a delinquent status your organization is ineligible to receive future grant agreements until the delinquency has been resolved. Failure to comply with the requirement could result in additional sanctions such as a hold on future grant payments to your organization, a request for repayment of the grant, etc. 

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