[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 27 (Thursday, February 10, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 7088-7089]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-2600]


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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Office of the Chief Financial Officer


Electronic Submission of Grant Applications Through Grants.Gov 
and e-Application

AGENCY: Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Department of Education.

ACTION: Notice of new policies and procedural requirements for the 
electronic submission of grant applications.

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SUMMARY: The Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Education 
(Department) announces new policies and procedural requirements for the 
electronic submission of grant applications through the governmentwide 
grants application site, Grants.gov, and the Department's grants 
application site, e-Application.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information on Grants.gov, call 
the Grants.gov Help Desk at 1-800-518-Grants. For information regarding 
the Department's e-Application System, call the GAPS Help Desk at 1-
888-336-8936. For general questions about the new policies and 
requirements announced in this notice, contact Blanca Rodriguez or 
Charlesetta Griffin, U.S. Department of Education, 550 12th Street, 
SW., room 7107, Potomac Center Plaza, Washington, DC 20202-4250. 
Telephone: Blanca Rodriguez at 202-245-6121 or Charlesetta Griffin at 
202-245-6157 or by e-mail: [email protected] or 
[email protected].
    If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD), you may 
call the Federal Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339.
    Individuals with disabilities may obtain this document in an 
alternative format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, or computer 
diskette) on request to the contact persons listed in this section.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This notice informs potential applicants for 
U.S. Department of Education grants of certain new policies and 
procedural requirements for the electronic submission of grant 
applications.
    Transition to Grants.gov. For certain fiscal year (FY) 2005 grant 
competitions, the Department will require applicants to submit their 
applications electronically through Grants.gov instead of through the 
Department's e-Application system. Grants.gov is a unified Federal Web 
site that allows organizations (e.g., local educational agencies, state 
educational agencies, institutions of higher education, non-profit 
entities) and individuals to electronically find grant opportunities 
and apply for grants from all Federal grant-making agencies.
    As a partner agency working on the development of Grants.gov, the 
Department is committed to using Grants.gov in helping potential 
grantees find grant opportunities (http://www.grants.gov/Find) and 
apply for grants (http://www.grants.gov/Apply). Currently, the 
Department posts synopses of all its discretionary grant funding 
opportunity announcements in the FIND section of Grants.gov. This year, 
the Department will also provide for applicants to submit electronic 
applications through the APPLY section of Grants.gov for selected grant 
programs.
    You can immediately start searching the FIND section of Grants.gov, 
at the above Web address, for Federal grant opportunities. You can also 
register at the Web site to receive automatic e-mail notifications of 
new grant opportunities as they are posted.
    To prepare to use the APPLY function of Grants.gov, we strongly 
recommend that you immediately initiate and complete the ``Get 
Started'' steps to register with Grants.gov at http://www.grants.gov/GetStarted. Although the steps can be completed within a few days in 
many cases, we strongly advise against waiting until a specific grant 
opportunity is announced before initiating the Grants.gov registration 
process to avoid facing unexpected delays that could result in the 
rejection of your application.
    The Department does not intend to use the Grants.gov system for all 
of the Department's grant competitions. You must consult the 
Department's official grant application notice to determine the 
application procedures for each program. For those competitions 
accepting electronic applications, the official grant application 
notice will specify whether electronic applications are to be submitted 
through Grants.gov or the Department's e-Application system. The grant 
application notice is the final authority for this determination. 
However, the Department's Forecast of Funding Opportunities includes 
information on grant competitions that may use the APPLY function of 
Grants.gov this year. The Forecast may be accessed at http://www.ed.gov/fund/grant/find/edlite-forecast.html. It is important to 
note that if a competition is using the APPLY function of Grants.gov, 
it will not be using e-Application, and vice versa. Over the next 
several years, the Department plans to use the APPLY function of 
Grants.gov as the primary

[[Page 7089]]

means for accepting electronic grant applications.
    Exceptions to Mandatory Electronic Filing Requirement. We also 
announce a change in our policy and procedures for permitting 
applicants to submit paper applications in those competitions where the 
Department requires the electronic submission of applications through 
Grants.gov or e-Application. Under this new policy, when we require 
that applicants submit an application electronically through Grants.gov 
or e-Application, we will permit an exception to this requirement and 
will allow the submission of an application in paper format by mail or 
hand delivery only in two sets of circumstances. Specifically, an 
applicant will be permitted to submit an application in paper format by 
mail or hand delivery if the applicant--
    (a) does not have access to the Internet; or
    (b) does not have the capacity to upload large documents to the 
Department's e-Application system or the Grants.gov application system; 
and
    (c) submits a written statement to the Department that the 
applicant qualifies for an exception under one of these grounds.
    The written statement must be mailed or faxed to the program office 
(include the program name and CFDA number) no later than two weeks 
before the application deadline date (14 calendar days, or if the 
fourteenth calendar day falls on a Federal holiday, the next business 
day following the Federal holiday). A fax must be received by the 
Department on or before this date and an applicant should ensure that 
it retains a receipt of the faxed transmission. A mailed statement must 
be postmarked on or before this date and applicants should refer to the 
grant application notice for acceptable forms of proof of mailing. 
Unlike our prior policy, we will not accept requests for waiver of the 
electronic submission requirement up until the application deadline 
date.
    If an applicant provides its statement on or before the two-week 
deadline, the Department will accept the statement and paper 
application and will not provide any response to the statement. If an 
applicant submits a paper application but fails to submit a statement 
or does not submit a statement in a timely manner, the Department will 
not accept the applicant's paper application. The Department will 
notify an applicant if it is not accepting the applicant's paper 
application.
    Electronic Access to This Document: You may view this document, as 
well as all other Department of Education documents published in the 
Federal Register, in text or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) on 
the Internet at the following site: http://www.ed.gov/news/fedregister.
    To use PDF, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available 
free at this site. If you have questions about using PDF, call the U.S. 
Government Printing Office (GPO), toll free, at 1-888-293-6498; or in 
the Washington, DC area at (202) 512-1530.

    Note: The official version of this document is the document 
published in the Federal Register. Free Internet access to the 
official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal 
Regulations is available on GPO Access at: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/nara/index.html.


    Dated: February 4, 2005.
Jack Martin,
Chief Financial Officer.
[FR Doc. 05-2600 Filed 2-9-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4000-01-P