Dear NIST Grantee Community,

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) extends our sympathies to all those affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As the affected regions begin restoring communities and returning to work, please know that NIST is here to support you. We understand that there are many burdens and challenges ahead of you. You may have already made contact with, or been contacted by, the assigned Federal Program Officer at NIST. In an effort to assist you with continuing or completing any grant or cooperative agreement work, NIST has prepared the following administrative relief actions and instructions for affected recipients. Please feel free to contact your Grants Officer or Grants Specialist for additional information.

For programs funded under Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) 11.609, 11.611 – MEP, and 11.617, NIST will:

• Allow for up to a twelve-month, one time no-cost time extension;
• Relax pre-approval requirements for reprogramming budgeted funds from 10 percent to 25 percent;
• Extend the project reporting an additional 90 days from the due date – this includes submission of progress reports, financial status reports, and award close-out documents;
• Make every effort to expedite the transfer of awards from one affected organization to another qualified organization.

For programs funded under CFDA 11.612 – ATP, NIST will:

• Extend the project reporting an additional 90 days from the due date – this includes submission of progress reports, financial status reports, and award close-out documents.

For all grant and cooperative agreement recipients where the Department of Commerce (DoC) is your cognizant audit agency, an extension of the currently approved indirect cost rates (i.e., predetermined, fixed, or provisional rates) for one (1) additional year is granted without submission of an indirect cost rate proposal to DoC to finalize the current rates and establish future rates.

In addition to the above, if your grant or cooperative agreement records are missing or destroyed, please inform the assigned NIST Grants Officer to request assistance in reconstructing your records from our official award files. NIST will do everything possible to ensure continuity of your project and will consider additional administrative relief actions, as appropriate, at the request of the recipient that may not be specifically addressed in this notification.

Organizations should inform, in writing, the appropriate Grants Officer when you have elected to take advantage of any of the above administrative relief actions. The Grants Officer may be required to take additional steps or issue a formal amendment to ensure that you have access to funding. The above relief actions apply to those organizations located in the cities and counties declared as disaster areas under the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Major Disaster Declarations numbered 1602, 1603, 1604, 1605, 1606 and 1607. These declarations are available on the Internet at http://www.fema.gov/news/disasters.fema or you can contact your Grants Officer to see if your organization is eligible.

Please contact the NIST Grants & Agreements Management Division Chief, Angela McNerney, at 301-975-8006 or via email at angela.mcnerney@nist.gov for any other assistance.

Sincerely,

/s/

Thomas P. Klausing
Acting Chief Financial Officer

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Created: 10/31/05
Last updated: 08/14/07