City of Sacramento
City Council Report
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Sacramento, CA 95814
www.cityofsacramento.org
File ID: 2022-01384 8/9/2022 Consent Item 16.
Supplemental Agreement No. 01: Grant Management System
File ID: 2022-01384
Location: Citywide
Recommendation: Pass a Motion authorizing the City Manager or the City Manager’s designee to execute Supplemental Agreement 2022-1361-01 with Eight Cloud, LLC for the implementation of the Grants Management System for $581,440, increasing the agreement amount for a new not-to- exceed amount of $704,640.
Contact: Natasha Greer, Program Specialist, (916) 808-7920, [email protected], Information Technology; Ash Roughani, Special Projects Manager, (916) 808-7751, [email protected], Office of the City Manager; Maria MacGunigal, CIO, (916) 808- 7998, [email protected], Information Technology.
Presenter: None
Attachments:
1-Description/Analysis
2-Supplemental
Description/Analysis
Issue Detail: Over the last five years, the City has increasingly assumed the role as a grant funder.
City grants fund a range of activities for community benefit, including support for youth services, violence prevention programs, small business support, and homeless services. As the coronavirus pandemic emerged, the City’s influx of federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) has allowed the City to further invest in these programs, often addressing acute needs of our most vulnerable residents.
As the City’s funding capacity to distribute grants has increased, the City Manager’s Office (CMO) recognized the need to develop standard policies and procedures to guide the City’s grantmaking activities. In response, the City adopted a Grant Distribution administrative policy in December 2020.
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File ID: 2022-01384 8/9/2022 Consent Item 16.
Absent a centralized grant management office, however, the administration of City grants continues to be performed at a department-level. This decentralized approach has led to the City’s use of many different technology systems and tools to manage the lifecycle of each grant program; from the pre- award through post award phases. As a result of this technology system fragmentation, the City cannot easily generate citywide reports about its grant activities.
In adopting the Fiscal Year (FY) 2021/22 Approved Budget, City Council allocated $800,000 in the Department of Information Technology’s (IT’s) Capital Improvement Program (CIP) (A07001500) budget to develop and implement a citywide Grants Management System. On December 19, 2019, IT released Request for Proposals (RFP) P20071011004. In response to the RFP, the City received eleven proposals. However, due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the City did not interview the highest scoring firms that submitted proposals until December 2020. During negotiations with the top ranked firm, IT staff conducted due diligence and identified major risks associated with that firm’s proposed system architecture. Subsequently, the City ended negotiations with that firm and instead entered into City Contract 2021-1361 (Contract) with the next highest scoring firm, Eight Cloud, Inc., in December 2021 in the amount of $123,200.
The initial scope of the contract was limited to planning and design activities to ensure that all business requirements were thoroughly documented and to provide the City with flexibility in choosing how the Grants Management System would be developed and implemented. This approach also mitigated the risk of potential cost overruns and enabled the City to more accurately assess the resources needed to successfully complete the project.
Council approval is needed to move forward with the development and implementation of the Grants Management System via the supplement as the increase in the amount of the contract will exceed the City Manager’s authority (Sacramento City Code section 3.64.040.A.1.b). Staff anticipates that the system rollout will occur during the first half of 2023. When completed, the System will enable the City to:
· Identify and track grant funding opportunities that City departments may pursue; · Collaborate with internal staff and external partners to apply for grant funding opportunities; · Publish funding opportunities for grants that the City plans to award; · Receive, review, and evaluate grant funding applications from applicants; · Communicate with applicants and grantees;
· Receive financial reports and reimbursement requests from grantees; · Receive performance and activity reports from grantees; · Send reminders regarding pending tasks and due dates to grantees and City staff; · Generate system-wide and program-specific grant data reports; and, · Publish grant data to internal and external dashboards.
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File ID: 2022-01384 8/9/2022 Consent Item 16.
As development and implementation of the system proceeds, the CMO will continue to focus on the people and process components that are critical to a successful implementation. Specifically, the following activities are underway:
· CMO convenes a volunteer group of City staff that meets monthly to discuss relevant topics and advance a community of practice of professional grant managers. · The Office of Diversity & Equity is assisting City grant managers in the collection of standardized, disaggregated demographic data that will ultimately be recorded in the Grant Management System.
· CMO is developing an ARPA Grants Management Policy that builds on the lessons learned in administering CARES Act funded grants. Similarly, CMO will initiate a process to update the City’s Grant Distribution Policy.
· In collaboration with the City’s ARPA grant liaison consultant, CMO is developing a public dashboard to communicate how the City’s ARPA Framework and Funding Priorities are being spent, who is being served by ARPA grant-funded programs, and key performance indicators from each program.
Once completed, the Grants Management System will be the culmination of lessons learned by City staff over the last several years and better equip the City to share the amount and impact of its grant investments moving forward.
Policy Considerations: The recommendations in this report are in accordance with Sacramento City Code chapter 3.64 and Administrative Policy 4102.
Economic Impacts: None.
Environmental Considerations: The report concerns administrative activities that will not have a significant effect on the environment and are exempt from CEQA review (CEQA Guidelines Sections 15061(b)(3); 15378(b)(2)).
Sustainability: Not applicable.
Commission/Committee Action: Not applicable.
Rationale for Recommendation: The implementation of a citywide Grants Management System will better position the City to more uniformly and effectively manage its grants and provide additional transparency regarding the City’s grant activities. City Contract 2021-1361 was originally executed within the City Manager’s signing authority. To execute the subsequent development and implementation phase of the contract, Council approval is needed as the total contract amount will exceed $250,000.
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File ID: 2022-01384 8/9/2022 Consent Item 16.
Financial Considerations: Sufficient funding is available in IT’s CIP Program (A07001500) to execute the supplemental agreement.
Local Business Enterprise (LBE): Not applicable.
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