 Hello, good afternoon, and welcome to our Nebraska Library Commission webinar on our American 2021 American Rescue Plan Act for meal grants. Actually going to talk about multiple grant opportunities, but that's our main focus for today. ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act, and what the funding we have here from the Library Commission to provide to libraries. I am Krista Porter. I'm the Library Development Director here at the Nebraska Library Commission, and with me is Sam Shaw. Sam, introduce yourself. I'm Sam Shaw. I'm the Planning and Data Services Coordinator, and also the LSTA Coordinator. Lots of us have many hats that we wear. And we are going to go over what the Nebraska Library Commission has received from ARPA via the new American Rescue Plan Act, and what we have to offer out to libraries. As I said, officially this webinar is scheduled for an hour, but we will go as long as it takes to answer all of your questions. Go to webinar. This is our account here. We will not get cut off right at 3 p.m. central time. So don't worry about that. Type in your questions to the questions section there. Whenever you think of them or anything you're wondering about, we might get to them as we go through the slides. We might have some new questions you guys have that we hadn't thought about. But that's what we're here for, to make sure you get all the information you need about this so that you can apply for these grants and these funding opportunities. So what do we have here? General overview here of ARPA. ARPA, this is the American Rescue Plan Act that I'm sure everyone has heard about, passed by Congress. A huge amount of money in this bill, this new stimulus bill in response to the still the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. $1.9 trillion in total. We have some of that. If you go and look at the act, there are tons of different opportunities in there for funding from multiple agencies, multiple organizations, cities, counties, states who have been awarded certain parts of this funding. And so we're going to talk about what we have here through the library commission, but look for other opportunities in the ARPA that you might be able to apply for, whether you as a library or your city or your county on behalf of you. There's going to be other things there as well that you can apply for. As part of this, the IMLS Institute of Museum and Library Services was awarded $200 million to use as they see fit. They're using some of it to expand their own programs and grants, but they awarded in the grants to states programs that the Nebraska Library Commission gets more money from every year, $2.4 million specifically of this ARPA money. For us, that's a huge amount of money. We've never had that big a pot before. I don't think, Sam, is that correct? Not that I know of. So this is a lot of money to give out. We do get money every year from my IMLS, but it's not nearly this much. To start with, we are doing some, just so you're aware of where some of the money is going, some statewide initiatives to add to some things that we do. Money is being, is allotted to the Nebraska Overdrive Libraries Group to add titles to that, those e-books that they have there, a letter compensation program. There'll be more money put into that for libraries to lend interlibrary loan. We've awarded some funding to our four regional library systems, so they all have a little bit extra money to work with. We are also paying for the next annual, the next year's subscription to both Niche Academy and Reader Zone. Niche Academy has been used with our Library Innovation Studios program and with some of our Continuing Education training. And Reader Zone is for doing summer reading programs or any sort of reading program. We actually started with Reader Zone last year with the CARES Act grant funds, paid for first year. And the second year, we're using ARPA funds to continue with it for another year. So you can use that for free and no cost to you for any summer reading programs, but any sort of reading competitions you might have. And we're adding titles to both our book club kits here at the Library Commission, very popular of course, and our professional collections for librarians. So you'll see more titles added to that as well. Specifically for the grants we were giving out, so those are statewide programs that we're just putting money into for things that we provide. But then we have actually three different grants that we're going to be using some of this ARPA funding for as well. The big one is going to be the FOMIL grant program that we're talking about today. 1.4 million of the 2.4 that we got has been allocated specifically to that program. And we'll get into all the details of that in a bit next. But I also want to make sure that you're aware there are also two more competitive grants that will be coming up where we are adding ARPA funds to. These are our library improvement grants and our youth grants for excellence, the two grants that we usually have there from annually. Sometimes library improvement isn't every year, but both of those we are adding more funding to using the ARPA funds. Usually we have for each of those in the last few years, 20-ish thousand dollars of a lot of each one. So not a huge amount, but enough to award some grants. Using the ARPA funds we are putting, I believe it was $150,000 into the library improvement grants and $75,000 into the youth grants for excellence. So as you're thinking about this formula grants we're going to talk about and get into all the details about here, also think about these two upcoming competitive grants coming up that we plan to open up in August as it says here. If you have something for youth routines that you want to do a program, apply for a youth grant. If you have something that is maker space related or upgrading your library automation system or something more technology related, look for applying for the library improvement grants and then use your formula grants for anything that doesn't fall into those two categories. So think big, think of anything you might want to do and you've got a lot more money to coming for these two upcoming competitive grants. Something else that's new and is because of it being ARPA coming from ARPA funding, all legally established public libraries, tribal libraries and institutional libraries will be eligible for these two grants. The library improvement grants and the youth grants for excellence. That also goes for the formula grants we're going to talk about too, but I wanted to mention that in relation to these two because that is different from how we've usually done both of those grants. Except for this year, especially here, just one time opportunity, usually those two grants are accredited libraries and state run institutional libraries. Because it's ARPA funding, we are opening it up to anybody. So if you've never applied to a grant for, to us for a grant because you are not accredited, now is your chance. One time, get on it while you have this available. And we have a question which I did see the email from you as well Matt is going to reply. I want to know if there's a cap per library that can be requested in the library improvement grants. We've never had a cap before for them. I would not say we have one now. I wouldn't think that's grant that I run. I would not want to put a cap in there. I would say we do have a limited, more than what usual, but a specific amount of money and it would depend on how many grants we get and how much they are all for. We do give partial grants, both for the library improvement and youth. So both of those, you may apply for something and if we don't have them enough to completely fund your full amount, we may say, sorry, we were limited. We can only do 50% or whatever it comes out to be. So there's no cap. Just ask for what you want and we'll see what happens that we can do with it. All you got to do is try. Okay. So here's a question. I think this is something maybe, Sam, I don't know if you want to do it now or wait to explain about what are considered the institutional libraries. I think that's what the question someone wants to know. Do private universities count? No. That's not what we mean by institutional. But private universities, yeah, we are doing money to public libraries, tribal libraries and institutional as far as like corrections. Is that what we're talking about? That's what we're talking about as far as institutional. State-run institutions like corrections, prison libraries, HHS, regional center libraries, state-run veterans homes would be another one that would qualify as an institutional library under these grants. Yeah. So for universities and colleges, there's money coming from the department education and from that side that you should go and look for here at the library commission. This is who we are able to provide grants to. And this is based off of our LSTA five-year plan really, right Sam? I mean who we serve in these grant programs. Yes. All right. So we're going to talk about four of my grants now and look for more information coming about the two competitive grants. Basically it's our two regular ones just with a lot more money and fewer restrictions. And available to non-accredited libraries too. Exactly. Yes. All right. So formula grants. So I'm going to talk about formula grants because I'm dealing with those. So kind of an overview of formula grants. We've never really done them in the state before. A lot of other states do them that get larger LSTA funds from IMLS. They do these kinds of formula grants on a regular basis. We've never done them before. We kind of tended to focus more on statewide projects but with this kind of windfall of money we thought that we would try this this time to try and get the money out to libraries. And so kind of an overview of how these work is. These are non-competitive grants. So there's an amount that you would apply for and then receive. They're not like the other ones that Crystal was talking about where there's a limited amount of funds and then everybody applies for it and then the applications are reviewed. This is money that's allocated to each library that's eligible. And as Crystal mentioned before public tribal and institutional libraries. We kind of talked about state institutional libraries. We get a lot of questions about public libraries and what qualifies as a public library. Of course that definition is different from state to state. In Nebraska we define a public library in the statute as in the slide here it says legally established. That means that the library has been established for the use by the local governing board. So the city council, board of trustees of the village for the free use of the citizens of that city, village or county. And then the library must have a board of at least five members. So those are the two requirements to be a public library in Nebraska. That's the definition that's in the statute. And there's other things that you would do as a library but those are the two minimum criteria that makes you legally established and eligible for. Right and it's kind of confusing because there's a federal definition that talks about paid staff and open hours and all this sort of thing. So and I think of that that muddies the waters sometimes. So it's good to have this on paper and this is also the statutory links are also on the formula grant part of our website. So if you actually want to go and look at that statute there's a link to it there under title 51 of the Nebraska statutes. Yeah we should mention we have a website all about this and it's later on in the slides it has all this as well laid out as what we have here. I mean tried to link to anything and everything we could think of that would explain ever anything. Right these slides are kind of a summary of what's on the website but if you want a more comprehensive look at a lot of these things they're available and we tried to provide it on the ARPA part of our website. So and if you don't write down the link you can always just type in ARPA in the search box on our website and these pages should come right up for you. So you want to click next slide there Krista. And so the way that we've determined these formula grants is we have a base allocation for every library and then a per capita amount. So we've used the most recent census data for the library's legal service area. So for public and tribal libraries we have a base allocation of 3,750 and then a per capita amount of just over 25 cents 0.275 per capita. So that's in addition to the base payment that libraries would be eligible to receive. And then the institutional formula is a little bit different it's a base amount of $1,500 plus $2.50 per capita and that's based upon the average resident population. So if you have a correctional institution for instance that you know the count fluctuates from day to day that's kind of the average the average not the design capacity but the average number of residents or inmates. One thing to note is that these formula grants should be considered as a one-time award. We don't expect Congress to pass another $1.9 trillion dollar bill and allocate more money to IMLS. I mean it's possible but we probably should think about this as a one-time award. So don't depend on that coming no in response to the pandemic. Yeah yeah so it shouldn't be looked at as something maybe that you would receive every year it's more to be looked at as a one-time award. Okay one-time special case um and also I'll explain a little bit too um because we had some people question well I've already gotten some things using the CARES Act um what about you know do I really need to come up with something to buy and we'll get into that when we talk about what's eligible and whatnot this is this here these formula grants this is already allotted to your library it's not a competition it's not you know if you don't get it someone else will or you gotta be of route you automatically have 37.50 plus that per capita ready for us to send out to you and use so come up with something to use it for get it grab this money while you can. And it's not a race so if if a bunch of people applied before you do um and you still applied before the deadline you still get the money if you meet those minimum requirements if you're an eligible librarian if you don't apply and it's getting close to the deadline which is actually um the next slide here we will be reaching out to you to find out why there will be nudging from us and our system directors regional system library system directors I've already know that at least one of them is going to do has said that um we will reach out to you and find out if we don't hear from you why aren't you what is there something we can do to help you figure out how to use this what can we do to make use of this this is you know we want to get this out to everybody and I would also say on a later there's a later slide with a link to a chart or a form or the formula chart so it would list your city and your library and the um allocated amount um that you would receive if you meet those minimum requirements of a public library for instance and then submitted your application and agreed to the terms and conditions um if for some reason we've missed your like we went by the best information that we have available but if for some reason we've missed your library please contact us that way we can get our records updated um we think we've got every library that um that would meet that criteria but if for some reason we have missed you um let us know and we'll we'll take a look at that and see if we can get added yeah there's been a little tweaking even since we opened this up on a week ago so um and as Sam said this is our first time doing one of these formula grants so oh we're learning as we go yes so things may change throughout the process if we realize oh wait that we should have done something different or somebody questioned something and we didn't think about that you know we will you know adjust as needed uh generally the idea is get the money out to you guys as easily and quickly as possible now we do have a couple of questions that I'm going to stop in and um talk about right now because it is related to um the board um having a library board of consisting of at least five members and two people have the same same question and I'm sure other people may think about this and I'll uh address this one because it's really the things I work with what if the board doesn't have five members um we have four with the fifth one not being approved till August um what if we're down one board member what's the deadline to having one and still being eligible that's okay we know board members come and go uh if you are currently down one because you're waiting for someone to apply or you're waiting as one of those for the official approval from your your city that's okay uh you do not have to have actually five people and give us all their names at the minute you apply as long as as a regular as part of your regular library board there are five spots and most off most of the time you've got five people in those spots that's okay we know there's going to be transitions between members or um things like this and and that's perfectly fine uh what you can't do is regularly not have a board or well we only have we only require three members on a board or something no you have to have your board set up with bylaws that state that you have five board members that's how many members this is this is state statute that says this in order to be you know you can be a library and not have five members in your board but you're not legally established per state statute that's where the the line is we've got many libraries in the state we've got some libraries that are not they're reading rooms are just so small that they don't and that's fine those libraries are welcome to exist and do their thing but they're not legally established because they don't have that board the bylaw is stating we have five members so it's okay if you're in transition it it's not a best harden best if there's not five people's names that we know you're out of luck no that's not the case so go ahead and apply um so that now that one so a lot of you if you're a public librarian you probably got an email from me earlier um about a week ago actually Tuesday last Tuesday indicating that these formula grants are now open so we've received I think 35 applications as of this morning already people that have applied the deadline to apply you have some time a lot of time actually December 31st 2021 um that's the deadline to submit your application and um purchase is made between March 15th 2021 are eligible for reimbursement so if you made a purchase after March 15th 2021 that's eligible to be reimbursed um from these funds and then final purchases must be made um no later uh before May 31st 2022 um so you have some time uh to make eligible purchases that's the final drop dead date for that um another two other requirements um that we have is that you must submit a grant completion report and copies of your invoices before June 30th of 2022 um there's a completion report we have a preview report online right now it's kind of in a word I believe it's in a word format um that will be switching to an online submission so you can preview that completion report but if um if you have your information and want to submit it just wait for now until that um is made available electronically it'll be similar to how you submit your application um all online um and the reason we require a completion report is we have to report back to IMLS um how these funds are spent so if you want to look at that completion report familiarize yourself with what we're asking for in the completion report you can go ahead and preview that online but later on it'll be submitted um electronically right and for those of you that did apply for the CARES Act grants last year they'll recognize this timeline this is pretty much the same kind of timeline as as last year's that you there's there was a march date you could so you could look you know submit invoices even before you applied for the funding um and then you've got that deadline of May and then June for the reports it's a similar timeline as last year's and I think this is in a later slide but I'll talk about it now since we're mentioning invoices so if you have your invoices and you want to submit those you can even scan them and email them to me you can make paper copies and send them to me um you can also fax them if you'd prefer to fax them just send them to my attention we can put it in your file um if it was say something that you know a reimbursement of a purchase that already occurred you know after that March 15th date you can send those anytime yeah it's just the completion report that we'd like to submit electronically at a later date okay next slide so we have a lot of goals of this program of this program that came from IMLS these are IMLS is broad three broad ranging goals for the ARPA program that has become goals of the formula grant program because these are this is the framework that we have to operate under and so these the first one is kind of deals with digital content accessibility particularly in the areas of education health and workforce development when you look at that I would also and we'll get to this later on I would also be my you know caution you to be mindful of other sources of funding so right now there's a lot of other sources of funding for these types of projects so you need to be aware of that if there's another source of funding for some of these projects maybe that's a better use of funds and then your formula grant money could be used for something else so keep that in mind too and Krista I think I'll talk about that later with some of the e-rate programs that are going on and other sources of funding the second one is kind of kind of mirrors I think what we dealt with with CARES Act which is kind of like response to the pandemic these are health health and safety protocols public health protocols you know making your areas you know more safe and more accessible to people and then the third one is kind of this broad umbrella of you know library services and they give some examples here about personal technology training material supplies and equipment the thing to keep in mind is you're talking about meeting the needs of your community and we realize that you're in one community may have different needs than another one that's one of the reasons I think that we wanted to do this formula grant program is to actually put the money out into specific libraries because they have different needs in one community as opposed to another so the third one I think is important and I've been mentioning this a lot in our discussions about it the first two are very much related to what was from the CARES Act last year CARES Act this I think I kind of think of the ARPA as an expansion of what you could ask for in the CARES Act in response to the same in event the COVID-19 pandemic but last year with CARES Act was very much more limited to hotspots getting digital content out there doing virtual programming you know nothing in person for safety reasons and then all that PPE stuff the pandemic mask cleaning supplies, plexiglass shields at your desks all that kind of things of the immediately responding to being safe being safe from the pandemic and then providing services to our community with this one they've realized you still may need some of that pandemic you know it's still still full blast in many many places but there's other things that you may need money for now as well but just may have been cut because of tax receipts being down you may have had to just cut back on things in general and you want to try and ramp things back up so ARPA really expands it out to um anything digital content you're wanting to get and then that last one of supporting library services needs that's pretty much anything you do as a library you have technology for cleaning materials you need equipment um we've actually we've had webinars with IMLS about this and with materials something that people asked about and was not before you can update your collection you can buy print books things you actually lend out to people with this books DVDs whatever you might need any equipment you need in the library so think of anything that you either have had to not haven't been able to do and you have this one-shot deal to do it or you know get creative of something you were you know wishful thinking and if we could if we had a little jolt of three thousand something dollars hey yeah it could be in response yeah and it could be in response to maybe some how your services have changed because of the pandemic or in response to the pandemic but it could also just fall into that umbrella of your normal day-to-day operations I think it's broadly encompassing a lot of those things yeah which is a great I think about this that you think beyond pandemic but we have focus areas too and you're just mentioning that fourth one they're the new service models new things we've come up with new ways of doing business and we might want to make that permanent could use this money to do that yeah so these are kind of the IMLS but buzzwords that they've put out for focal areas um a lot of these should look familiar to a lot of people work first development digital inclusion is a big thing um and that's also an area where there's a lot of other funding that's available right now especially in rural areas equity and diversity and inclusion new service models so that may be you know how things have shifted more to electronic ebooks as we've looked at our data like from last year print circulation went way down electronic circulation went way up so you know maybe that's a trend that continues as some of these people during the pandemic um maybe look to ebooks instead of print books and maybe now they're more regular ebook users I don't know they get used to it and and realize hey I like this I'm gonna do it even more yeah so you may have you know increased capacity for that and then social and this is like the CARES Act stuff that we talked about social and physical distancing measures um this may be reconfiguration of outdoor spaces that's one example that could be you know something to address that I know that a lot of people have already undertaken these projects you know like to flex the best shield on the front desk increase hand sanitizing stations but that could be something that would be you know one of these IMLS focus areas and if you didn't you know weren't able didn't apply for the CARES Act grant last year which that was a competitive grant with evaluations and we um did award you know some partial grants um if you're still working on some of this stuff that you're thinking about last year and you didn't get the grants you didn't do it use this money now now you've got a second chance to do some of the things that maybe you weren't able to do last year because you didn't get awarded the grant are we only were allowed to give you partial funding yeah or maybe in some cases libraries were closed for a long period long group period of time too and now they're reopening that to a normal type schedule longer than expected yeah that's um possible oh we do have a question here where is it now uh there we go i'm just reading it is it on me um i would think the answer would be yes to this question but wouldn't i'll see what you think sam would a new website count as digital content i'm going to be writing up an rfp for a new website could i use the funds to help fund that project maybe yeah my initial reaction would be yes but i would want to double check and make sure um i would say to that person send us any send us the question in email and we'll we'll double check but yeah it sounds like it would be and i mean sometimes we've had some questions from libraries the key is you know explain the why of it it really helps we need to check with imls about you know any of it yeah but yeah it's digital content it's offering um service and you know it may be one of those things where we need more information because what you know what is the purpose of the web the new website is it to promote those digital resources and content that you know you're using maybe part of your money on then it would seem to make sense to me um you know if you didn't have overdrive and now you're adding overdrive and you want the website to you know make that more visible or promoted in the community i think then that sounds like a definitely an allowable use of the funds yeah but i would probably want a little bit more information yeah and something that's good about this too is um and for people are wondering what about this what about that i would say apply for the funding you'll get the funding and then send us the invoices or send us the information about what you would like to say you use that funding for and we can then um even after you've received the funding from us we can i guess approve or deny you know work with you on is that actually eligible or not and then you know if that website turns out well it's not eligible you still have till you know next may to find something else that you would use that money for so i wouldn't say come up with a pro this isn't a typical grant where you come up with a project tell us what you're doing and then we decide if we give you the money it's kind of the opposite we have money for you just ask for it then they'll discuss what you could what you might use it for ask us for the money we send it to you start sending us invoices sending us ideas and we'll go back and forth if need to and decide yes that one no not that one find something else you you got till next may to find out come up with things that could be eligible and there's we should be able to find something right um so one of the one of the basic iMLS objectives and this came from the head of iMLS and i thought it was a good quote he said that the purpose of what they want to do with this ARPA funding that they're distributing the states that part of their 200 million that they receive from congress is to provide direct immediate help to people outside the library and in the community to respond to and recover from the pandemic um so that's one of the things i think that you need to be thinking about um with your projects is you know how has covid affected my community and how can the library specifically respond to that um to help the community and i think this one too big different cares that recover part last year really in the midst it was just responding immediately what do we need to do right now this is thinking now that we are in some places moving out of it what are these new things we're going to be doing that help us recover and move on and add these services so and i think on the next slide there's a little bit more information here so um on our website we have a really comprehensive list of some examples of what you can spend your award on um so i would encourage everyone to look at that it's kind of broken down by category um of you know examples of what would be like an allowable cost um so check that out um it's there's far too many to list here in this webinar today so if you look on there you can kind of and that may give you some ideas too um for projects that maybe you want to fund um it's kind of the highlights here we will say that um anything that's in our internet um access or devices that connect to the internet you must have SIPA compliance and christ is the contact contact person in Nebraska for that as a part of e-rate so if you have a question about SIPA or um whether or not your project would require filtering um as required by SIPA check with Christa and she can probably answer those questions and then thirdly um any equipment that you intend to purchase that has a cost of over $5,000 requires pre-approval so you would need to send um us information about that equipment purchase that you intend to make because we need to get um approval pre-approval from my MLS and that is an individual item is $5,000 not your entire project is $5,000 correct yeah that's one like a one piece of equipment yeah if you're buying and this is a bad example like five desktop computers they're each $1,000 next to $5,000 no no correct yeah but you're buying a computer that's over $5,000 which i'd love to see what that is then you would have to check in first maybe a laser cutter or something that's a work yes those big makerspace equipment things or something yeah yeah so it doesn't necessarily mean that it wouldn't be allowed it just requires pre-approval so yeah yeah so just check with us ahead of time yeah um we have a couple questions that relate to this so i'm going to jump into those now uh is ah okay is SIPA compliance required if you're just buying monitors just computer monitors no SIPA the key to SIPA is is the thing you're buying related to providing internet access so it would be your routers um routers switches cables hot spots wow those things actually provide the internet service that's where SIPA comes to place if you're providing the service yes monitors show you the internet but they can show you other things too that are not so not if it's just for computer monitors no you would not need to be SIPA compliant for that um and then we have a related question can some of the funds be used for equipment for fiber that was not covered by e-rate funds yes we have asked this question can this money be used to cover that extra um and yes so if you've got if you if you participate in e-rate and you've uh an equipment purchase or something and you have your part that needs to be paid for you can use this money to cover that if you want to or if you didn't apply for e-rate or got denied or something whatever yes yep then on the extra cost of that you do have to put into e-rate yes you can use this for and i do see your other question Karen and we're going to get to that in a second here so i'm not ignoring you um and so going back to our explanation yes Monica what if we spend the money and it's not approved well what if we spend the money it's not approved so we just get the money and then we get ideas approved yes exactly that's actually a good example we get you the money and then start either send us invoices and we'll let you know yes or no or if you're wondering about a thing like well what about the website or about something we've already had some people asking us well what about this what about that um you know just start having a conversation with us about it and we'll figure out what is and isn't eligible for you right and if you have a project in mind and you had a question about whether or not it'd be an allowable expense you more than well welcome to email us and and we'll um give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down if that's questionable that way you're not going out and um making the purchase and then finding out later on that it's not an allowable cost right if you were depending on if you definitely want to get pre-approval you don't need to have pre-approval but if you but if for your own peace of mind you want that just feel free to drop an email we may ask if you caught follow-up questions about the project we should be able to tell you ahead of time if it's an allowable cost or not allowable cost if you should go through it forward with it or not yeah yeah and if it is questionable you may be able to shift your budget around um for some of those operating things that it would be an allowable cost and then use you know your regular operating budget from the city for some of these special projects okay here's another question about um equipment that's expensive cost i was thinking about a laser cutter for the library maker space if it costs more than five thousand dollars can we use some money from our budget yeah so you're not asking for five thousand dollars from this what do you think sam is that that i was supposed to work or i would still i would still think that that probably needs pre-approval for my mls because the money is going towards one piece of equipment that the total cost of that equipment is more than five thousand dollars anything that's a big ticket item they want to put their check off on yeah so reach out to us and let us know about it and then we'll go through the process yeah right so i think we on the next slide we have some of the unallowable cost examples maybe that'll answer some questions we do um but let's see um would e-readers need to be sip a compliant um if you are connecting them to the internet to access the um service then yes you'd have because you're using the internet for it you would then need to be in compliance with the sip a um as far as having filtering software on your internet connection or on the device i believe it would be um and oh thanks got it you're gonna have a big job yes we are but we're happy to do it giving giving away money is something we like to do it's not necessarily a bad problem to have no um and what is it what is wants to know about the link on the nlc web page it looks for us if you go and we had the link in the slides earlier and there's no link coming up too but if you go on to our website and um use a search box and type in arpa a rpa you find it also the link to the formula grants webpage is in the session description for this webinar so if you signed up for this you know we'll go on to our calendar um and there's a link to that it's also in the announcement on our blog on the main page you should still see that right on the main page of the commission's website so we have on the website we have a number and we've gotten a lot of questions even already about ineligible costs and i imagine we'll get a lot more um so on our website we've kind of listed the gen we're working under two frameworks basically we have you know iamls is general lsta rules about ineligible costs and then we have rules that apply to just these arpa funds so it's kind of under two different umbrellas here i'll make sure yeah yeah so on our website we have a general list of you know what definitely are ineligible costs some of the highlights of these are food beverages sales tax aren't those aren't allowable costs and we always get questions about construction projects which are fairly common and i'll try and answer these i'll try and provide a couple analogies that might help this is kind of what iamls has told us so if you're looking at construction or remodel expenses those generally are not going to be allowed those capital projects um they do allow what they call construction light that's a phrase that um the program program officer has said and kind of the the description that she's given is like if it involves a shovel and digging it's it's not going to be allowed but if it involves something that you can do like with a drill and a screwdriver that it probably would be allowed and kind of an analogy that i've thought of is like that i think is appropriate to the pandemic say your library wanted to include increase your air circulation um in your space and you wanted to install like a portable air cleaner that just plugs into the wall and maybe some fans portable fans um those would be allowable costs under these rules now if you wanted to hire an hvac contractor to come in and modify your hvac system to filter the air um you're using construction trades and that's going to be a construction project that's not allowed hiring an outside company to have to needing to hire an outside company to come in and modify something that's kind of the line you're crossing right you're all staffed with a screwdriver going install something put up a fan on the on the ceiling fan or something that's okay but if you have to have a company come in that's where lsda funds can't be used yeah and another example is like meeting rooms um say you bought a tv or a projector to install in a meeting room and it just involves you know like mounting it on the wall um that would be an allowable cost but if you needed to hire an electrician to come in or a contractor to come in and you know run wiring um or things like that that wouldn't be an allowable cost and those of you who did some of the cares that grants you may if you did apply for uh things like the um plexiglass shields at the desk installing those was included in allowed in that same thing here that kind of a quick it can be um you know screwed in and unscrewed and taken down pretty pretty easily that's that that's the other requirement as you know is it fixed or movable i mean on a lot of things you know i am ls that said you know like like with furniture um you know it has to be movable furniture or movable stacks um or taken out like with a screwdriver um a lot of libraries in other states are doing um projects with lockers and i think we mentioned this on the website so they're doing storage lockers either for you know like vestibule pickups or um package deliveries things like that they're not open so if it's you know if you have a contractor come in and put a wall in and you know permanently affix it to the wall it's probably not that labor is not going to be an allowable cost but you know if it just screws into the wall or sits in the vestibule and this freestanding it's probably going to be it would be an allowable cost that's kind of i mean i realize that's there's a lot of different scenarios though so if you have a project that you're thinking of um yeah just ask us ahead of time and if we don't know we'll find the answer for you yeah um so then that one we have a question here that i think we just right there answered uh remodeling our bathrooms no that's uh more than that would be yeah not from the this arpa money no um what an exterior electronic signage we have done that before with the library improvement grants so that's not as huge a project i guess they could prove that before yeah and it might depend on the project i mean if it's something that you know the wiring is already there and you just plug in and it you know just gets mounted to the side of the building that's probably probably would be an allowable cost um you know in the in an ineligible section of the website it talks about promotional things so promotional materials that say come to the library it's a great place that those aren't allowable costs but if you're promoting a specific thing you know like overdrive for instance um that would be an allowable cost so keep that in mind with the promotional part um but as far as the signage goes it may depend on the nature of the project like with something you just put in it probably would be allowable if it's something that requires major construction it probably wouldn't be allowable um and then we have another thing about wanting to expand an outdoor space if you want to expand an outdoor space picnic tables with a covered shelter is this not eligible actually we have that listed that outdoor yeah that is yeah outdoor spaces as a lot of libraries have reconfigured their outdoor spaces um some of the items that are um mentioned on our website include like patio heaters you know portable things like that um umbrellas if they're movable tables if they're movable yeah it's two outdoor tables and chairs act so yes actually the outdoor space um that's part of being safe for a pandemic yeah yeah we also mentioned charging stations and story walks um I think story walks are kind of a unique thing because if it requires a lot of construction I don't think that's allowed um if it's just something that just gets pushed into the ground um it probably would be an a lot it would be an allowable cost but if you're talking about having a contract for coming in and holes and for concrete yeah it's probably not going to be and going over the line yeah right um and then oh this is a good time actually tell us before we get on to the next slide here would um a hoopla subscription be covered yes but it can't go beyond the the subscription period that you're paying for can't go beyond um would it be the May date or September Sam well it definitely would be September 30th um it would be the drop the end date for digital so we're having you guys give us all you know submit the invoices and the founder report invoices by May founder report June because of our needing to report to IMLS the actual date when we have to have all the money expended and have everything everything totally done is actually end of September 2022 so that kind of falls in the case for this kind of thing and a subscription you would have to do just a year subscription that ends before that and that's all you can pay for you can't do like a multi-year subscription and just say it's for the one year um you'd have to have a we're doing a one-year hoopla subscription and that's it and then yes if you want to continue after that then you'll have to start a new contract a new year with them with other costs for beyond the September end of September 22 date so yes and I would say if you're looking at those types of projects that involve databases or that type of thing to let us know that you will maybe be extending it past that May 31st deadline for that reason or that you would require a waiver of that deadline and we take a look at that and another thing to indicate is that so overdrive because their lending models are kind of wonky and we just did a question came in for about overdrive if you're if you're looking at funding those types of things devra dragos in our here at Nebraska library commission she has dealt with that as far as the consortium goes so because there's certain rules you know it can't extend past that deadline so I would say that if you're looking for purchasing advantage titles or whatever um to maybe check with her um you know kind of for some guidance on that yeah so so Becky I'm gonna say your question about using money by content from overdrive we're gonna pass you off to devra for that so reach out to devra dragos if you have any overdrive related because she yeah it is we sam and I don't know enough about that to answer confidently yeah because we have devra for us I will say that like the the issue I think is that some libraries on overdrive are you know a certain a certain number of uses so if you purchased an ebook that said had you know say 40 uses um those uses can't extend past that drop dead date of September 30th and that's the issue so it may be just a question of purchasing titles that would expire before that date but she's dealt with it so she can help you with that yeah she knows all about that all right okay so um in kind of looking at community needs your community needs imls has identified three focal areas um or things that you could look at and try and to determine how to spend these money this money um snap statistics or poverty supplemental nutrition assistant program unemployment and broadband availability so that third part is when you know when I talk about these digital inclusion things you could also look at like how maybe the pandemic has affected your community as far as unemployment goes and maybe that's an area that you want to focus on either with your print collections digital collections um maybe other projects um you know maybe there's programs involving um unemployment specialists or other things that you could focus on um if your community has those needs so these are three areas that they've kind of said you might want to look at um for data so if you're unsure of what you might spend this on these areas to look into yeah yeah or talk to people in the community too you know that's always a great idea okay so more rules more rules um a good rule the good rule no local match is required so there's no local match on your part um that's always been a issue with uh work a requirement with library improvement grants is there's 25 local match required so for these formula grants there is no local match required and I will mention here while we're talking about it and I should have it on that first slide too about it this is going to go for our youth grants and our library improvement grants this year as well because this is ARPA funding no local match so if that has been something also has been holding you back from doing applying for a youth grant or a library improvement grant we have previously had that 25 match that you had to come up with funding this year one time only you don't have to you just get the whole amount for your full your project fully funded by um the grant funds and that was also the case with the CARES Act there was no local match too so yeah this is a a special stimulus funding this has that deal yeah so that's another incentive to apply for those competitive grants um but one thing that you should be aware of um we have a requirement um if you're an accredited library an MOE or maintenance of effort I should have spelled out that acronym so MOE is maintenance of effort requirement um those still apply so if you're an accredited library we have a maintenance of effort requirement where we could potentially reduce your state aid if your local funding does not um continue at the same level so you need to be aware that you know if your city government um is talking about maybe reducing the local funding because of you know these other funds that are available this one time that you should be aware that um MOE requirement still does apply and your state aid might be reduced if if that's in the future more than the three prior years and then federal non-discrimination rules apply that's built into the application for those of you who have looked at the application there's a great big boilerplate down at the bottom that kind of summarizes all these statutes um about federal non-discrimination rules um so you should be aware of those in the application itself um if you want to look at those and then like I said earlier you can submit your invoices at any time scan them and email them um send paper copies via us mail or fax them and go to Sam's attention I don't want them yeah send them to my attention Sam is doing all the paperwork behind the scenes for this grant yeah so I'm the contact person for the formula grants and then um Krista would be the contact person for the library improvement grants and then Sally Snyder would be the contact person for the youth grants as usual keep that in mind um but you can submit those completion reports when they become available it'll be an online form if you want to look at the word doc kind of to prepare for that um it's available on our website now the duns number I know we've gotten some questions about the duns number and um this is something new you've not had to do this before so you've never heard of this if you've done grants before that's okay right so IMLS now requires a federal UEI unique identity entity identifier um that's not it's too hard to say yeah um that's not a requirement for sub sub recipients which you are under the formula grants we're the recipient from IMLS to you the sub recipient um currently that UEI is a duns number that's available for free from Dun and Bradstreet and the links down at the bottom of this page in many cases your city or village may already have a duns number so you can look that up on that website you can go in and type in your information and it will indicate if you already have a number the application you'll have to put the number on the application there's a spot to enter your number I believe that next year this is going to change the duns number will go away and it'll be replaced by something else so that'll be something that we'll have to deal with later on with future sub sub grants like library improvement grants or whatever but for now it's just the duns number in it it's relatively simple if you have questions feel free to contact me I can help you with it but in most cases you may already have the duns number if you don't you can apply for it and it doesn't cost anything it's free and then we have a question about this we have had this question asked a lot can the library use the city's number and the answer is yes if your city has the number just go ahead yeah just go ahead and type that in enter that in your application and that's that should be all we need on our end and then an e-rate related question is the UEI the same as the EI for e-rate I assume you mean entity build entity number in e-rate is that what you're talking about Karen because the answer is no this is um this is a whole different number the duns number it's is this is for doing business with the FCC you have with the government you have to have one of these numbers so this is not any it's not the same thing as um e-rate uh the e-rate number nope it's a whole different one there it goes okay ah the formula so the formula itself we talked about that earlier about the base amount and then the per capita allocations if you want to know what your library is is eligible for you can go to this url and that's the chart you know that we talked about earlier by city library name then your allocation and then we've also added a fourth column on the right hand side for application status um so you can check on where your application's at um like I said we have 35 libraries that have already been approved submitted their application and been approved so on the website that for those libraries it shows the status as in process I think pop over to the website right now and I'll show I want to show that sure yeah actually so what that means is they've been approved and they are um sent over to our accountant for payment um what's they once they are paid that'll be updated from in process to to payment sent and um then you can you know you should be able should get the funds relatively quickly after that and that actually answers a couple of questions too that um we have want someone's know uh does the money come in all in one lump sum as soon as approved or after receipts are submitted and when will the grant be distributed so um the way this work this is a quick so it's not after the receipts are submitted that was in earlier questions I think you've gotten the answer to that you you apply you get the money then you start sending us invoices and this is a quick turnaround as possible we want to get this out to you so this is the list here of of you can see that some in process of all everyone who's eligible for it as far as we are as far as we know like Sam said if we missed you for some reason or you think someone else should be on this list let us know how much each library is getting and then what the status is as soon as we get your application it is immediately the same day or next day at the latest looked over by Sam approved passed on to our accountant then they immediately start the payment process so the distribution of this funds will be as soon as you send us to your application we have had some libraries ask about this that can they delay receiving the funding because they want it to be in next year's budget wait until their fiscal year starts which is sometimes in October or September rather than right now when it's available and that's okay you just wait to submit the application then you have until December 31st to do this so you got plenty of time so if you want to have this money come to you at a certain date later not like next week not like in July just wait to put in your application right like we said you are not going to be out of luck all this money this 1.4 million is already a lot and all of this is set aside for all of you guys to all the library all of you libraries to apply for you're not going to lose out on it if you wait until December or October or November or whenever it's just being held for you to let us know when you want it so if you do need it in next year's budget just wait to submit your application because that's when the process will start for issuing the money to you and I would say generally speaking you'd probably be looking at about two to four weeks to receive payment but a lot of that depends on how many applications are in front of you because the process you know an order of receipt and then you know if I'm on vacation or for our accounts on vacation that would maybe delay the process somewhat but the idea is to the idea is to get you the idea is to get you the money as fast as we can so we don't want to try and delay things once you file the application we're trying to move relatively quickly to get the money out to you exactly and we do have a couple of questions which have been asked directly of us already about having this sent to the library foundation can it be sent there or a question is who receives the funds my city or can it be said but unless you tell us different right now the funding for all of you that get state aid funding or dollars for data money however you get that money right now that is where the money will be sent and how it will be sent to you we're using the same process so where if your state aid money is going to a good place the right place you want it to and that's okay for this money to go there that is where it will go so if you have it sent some people have it sent to a library account and that's fine we can we can do checks we can cut and mail and mail anywhere or electronic funds transfer we do sometimes it can go to the library's account and go to the city's account if they then the city your city or village then does pass that on to you and that's the key that money has to be passed on to the library they cannot hold it and keep it in some general fund that the city then uses for everybody this money has to end up in the hands of the library now if that's an issue we recommend you have a friends group or a foundation that does this is where you have this money sent instead and we've talked to libraries Richard Miller before before me we've talked to many of you about this over the years if that is an issue get your foundation or your friends group set up with account and tell us you want the money sent there and we can do that you just have to let us know we will need to if we don't already have on hand for you a w nine form with your tax ID number for that organization for the foundation of the friends group or the if the library has its own bank account wherever you want it to go and then that is where we will send it and we can have it like I said paper check mail to you or electronic funds transfer whichever works best for you so you tell us where you want it sent you don't know where your money is going just ask I've been doing that a lot with our account and Laura and asking where does this library's money go they're not really sure and she can check it and within a day or so we can find out where it currently is going and if you think you need to make a change and I would say two things there so if you have your state aid payment or your dollars for data going to your foundation or your friends group instead of you know the library directly just drop me a note and indicate that you want this money to go to the friends group or foundation just so that we make sure we're on the same page yeah you want to just confirm with us sometimes both may be set up as paid email right after we apply so we know what we prefer that wouldn't be a bad idea if you're not sure we want to just confirm yeah just let me know and then mail and we'll we can look at that secondly if you want the money to go to your friends group or foundation the application is still filed by the library so you would still you wouldn't the foundation or the friends group wouldn't fill out the application the library itself would fill out the application and they just send me a separate email or notify me that you filed your application you want the payment to go to your friends group and then I'll make a note to our accountant to make sure that the check gets sent or the direct deposit gets made to the friends group or foundation yep so while we're here we're asking about this because we just have so it is a little after three o'clock like I said we will go as long as it takes for you to have all your questions asked and for us to get through everything we want to share there's only one extra slide after this that has to do with something extra but people are asking so here is the website for the formula grants as I said you can just search also type in arpa and you'll get to it and it's linked into everything about this webinar where we have the application itself is here and that list we just went to after this webinar is done I've got the recording ready probably tomorrow this here will have a link to the recording of today's session right now it's a link to signing up for what you're attending right now but we'll have a link to the recording there for anyone that needs to rewatch it or anyone who wasn't here we've got our deadlines the statutes we're talking about that relate to whether you are a legally established library or not all those goals we talked about and here are the examples of what to spend your funding on so as it says here this is not exhaustive there might be other things they're listed this is just ideas and these we've looked at other states who are doing arpa funding information we've received from IMLS about what we can and can't do so just look through this for ideas and what you know might want to do you can see this is and if you do remember the CARES Act this is much longer than that your cleaning supplies your PPE the usual still but things like collection print electronic ebooks and here that's a question answer that we're just saying all subscriptions have to end by september 30th if you do anything like that hoopla or anything more detail about what is ineligible is on here too digging into that this is the final report as Sam said this is a word doc right now just an example so you can prepare for what it will be we will have an online form you'll actually submit later and there's just some more of the rules and regulations about it we also have a general page for everything we're doing with the other two grants that we were doing with this arpa funding as well so there's the three grants the formula grants open now and then library improvement and youth we plan on both of those coming being available in august which is next month okay we'll get on that this i'll get on that the sally the rules will be similar to both of those as what is for the formula grants as far as the goal because all the same goals because all the same arpa funding the same ineligible costs so a lot of it's similar the difference would be our youth grants and our library improvement grants do have their own focuses youth obviously for things that are for your youth and teen programs you're doing there live improvement grants generally things for maker space equipment upgrading your library automation system if you're thinking about doing that other sort of technology things so you know bigger projects like that so look for those to open up hopefully yes next month before the end of august i promise both those will be available for you this is also so you can decide we've got these three pots of money available to us what do we want to use each pot of money for i've got a youth project for next summer i want to do or something over the winter or something let's get that in the youth grant to them i want to we're upgrading our online catalog let's do a live improvement grant and now i've got this formula grant for all the other things that didn't fall into those two so you know think about all three of those of which ones you can apply for for which projects remembering of course lab improvement news are competitive you may or may not be approved we may or may not have full funding to enough funding to fully fund your project but they are there and they both have a lot more money available to them anything else i'm going to show here sam while i'm on these pages before i don't think so there's a lot of information there so i just encourage you to go out there and read through it we've tried to provide answers to the most frequent questions um but if something you know doesn't fall under that just send us an email we'll try and answer it yep so okay well we've got a question here i'm confused the youth grant is part of the money assigned to each library or is another fund the youth grant for excellence we've got it's what it says right here we've got three different grants projects the formula grants that are available right now that is just here's a chunk of money assigned to you ask us for it then two competitive grants coming up the library improvement and youth grants for excellence now you are welcome to use your formula grants for whatever you want you can use it for a youth program if you want to or for something that would go under a live improvement grant like someone mentioned wanting to get a laser cutter or something you're welcome to use your formula grant for those things that's a guaranteed chunk of money but if you have bigger thoughts and you want to use that formula grant for something else you want to apply for youth grant instead for your youth things you could do that it's totally up to you how you want to use these three different pots of money um and you're welcome to just say formula grant only because it's guaranteed money not you know risky of possibly being not approved so yeah and the other thing that I would mention is that kind of um library improvement grants and youth grants for excellence are typically funded with just our general LSTA allocation and so I think what Christo was mentioning earlier is that there's a bigger pot of money this year because we've allocated some money of the ARPA funding yes um for those two grant programs so there's a little bit more funding available yeah much bigger pot of money and both of them eligible more people more libraries eligible and you could always apply for your formula grant money and just hold it um if you wanted to apply for a library improvement grant for a specific project and then if the project got approved you could use your formula grant money later on this fall for something else we are going to try and do a very quick turnaround for the library improvement and youth grants and get you your answers so that you can decide um effectively how you're going to use the formula grant so yeah I would say apply get the formula grant no matter what and then still apply for a youth grant for some project you use a library improvement for some project um I would estimate if we're opening up in August maybe by October we'd be able to have an answer to you about both of those and then you can decide based on if you did or didn't get approved for the two competitive grants now what do I actually use the money for I got the youth grant great now I use formula for something else or I didn't get the youth grant or I only got half of the cost covered by the youth grant I can cover the other half with my formula grant money and that's perfectly you know fine um you know hold it and wait and see what happens or spend it right away if you have an immediate need too yes if you do yeah just burn it all in your pocket and so this is exciting yeah it is exciting it's exciting for us too it's exciting it's confusing it's a lot to figure out and think about it's a lot of money um so go for it all right um I have one other thing to talk about but um any other last minute any other arpa questions you want to ask about any of these grants or about the formula based grant that you're wondering about take a look at the website um read through it take a deep dive think about what you could do with it apply for your money these four migrants are just wait this is just money waiting for you to request it so I've had some people asking about double dipping uh and I mentioned I mentioned at the beginning that there is a lot of arpa funding out there a lot of um state cities counties agencies have been awarded you know agriculture department department education everybody's got some sort of part of this money that they have been awarded to distribute and you can apply for multiple things and from multiple parts of money just like with our three grants you can apply for all three of those they're all arpa funds but they're different parts of arpa so you can apply for all of them there is no double you know dipping here uh one other thing that people have been confused about and I know Sam and I have both gotten questions about this is well what I thought we already knew about this what about didn't you know Chris already tell us about money for this no there is something else that's available right now too called the emergency connectivity fund the ecf I did a webinar about it last month yeah um this is another one-time program part of arpa but it is for a specific purpose you can also apply for our arpa grants and apply for this they're two separate things this is not something that we are offering through the library commission this is something that's coming from the FCC the FCC was awarded money to help support remote learning to close that homework gap the connectivity gap they got a lot of money for that 7.1 billion that's because it's for the whole country for k-12 schools and public libraries to get money for broadband access internet access and devices to provide internet services to their students and uh library patrons the key to this is it is not e-rate it is not an expansion of e-rate although it does sound similar to those you've done e-rate before and just to be more confusing it is actually being administered by USAC the same company that does run use e-rate and that it was using the same basic interface to online interface to request this funding so the FCC runs u-sac and has them doing both e-rate and this two different programs two different purposes e-rate is for having your internet connectivity into your library this is actually specifically expanding it off campus outside the library that's the key the emergency connectivity fund not to be used for inside your library this is remote learning is happening people are working from home people are going to school elsewhere people are attending classes at a community center or whatever and they don't have the internet connection or they don't have the actual device laptop tablets wi-fi hotspots and you as a library can purchase these items receive funding from the emergency connectivity fund and then lend it out to your your patrons so does SIPA apply to that Krista yes SIPA does apply because it's internet related yes so you're loud you would have to have filtering in that off-campus connection or on the device yes or on the device yes that you are lending out yes as i said there's there's a website specifically for the emergency connectivity fund dot org is where you go to apply for this there is a filing window if those of you know e-rate this sounds familiar a certain time period when you have to apply for this and this deadline is coming up august 13th it opened june 29th you have till august 13th to apply for this funding there's a lot of training information on that website emergency connectivity fund dot org there's my webinar i did and you can ask me questions about it as well as since it's something being done in the similar processes using e-rate me as your state e-rate coordinator i am the contact to help you get through this process as well there are some funding caps and rules about the money you'll get you get for your internet service and anything related to connecting the internet 100 reimbursement there's no discount rate and partial and you have to pay part it's full reimbursement of all that for laptops and tablets and why for hotspots there are funding caps the FCC did determine that laptops they're only going to cover 400 dollars worth of it part of it and for hotspots only 250 dollars you're welcome to buy something that's more expensive but you only you know you can buy a 600 a laptop but you only get 400 dollars of it from the emergency economy fund so look more into it there's a lot more details about this i'm not going to go into it all now like i said i did a webinar about it there's a lot of information the website um ask me questions if you do have any about it but i just wanted to make sure because people had been asking now that we've announced our arpa grants if that was the same thing as this no it's not two separate things and can you apply for both both absolutely decide which one is best for you you know if you notice on our arpa website things like broadband internet connections laptops tablets this is all listed on our website too that you can use our formula grants to apply to pay for but you can use this funding as well so more things to compare and decide which money i should use um the ecf funding caps are per device yes that is exactly it so um if you're going to buy 10 laptops it would be 400 per laptop yes and per hotspot so i just want to be aware that that's out there and there's like you said there's lots of other ones so look for other funding um to some people that's a bit overwhelming too much money but start dreaming about what you could do and tammy says the world is your oyster yeah there's so much out there you just got to sit down and figure out what will i apply for what will i use for what project and yeah and there is our contact information um oh oh sorry funding cap for ipads oh laptops and tablets any laptop or tablet is 400 per per so um chromebooks any sort of tablets chromebooks laptops ipads not desktop computers specific about being remote and being um mobile mobile that's it so laptops and tablets you can carry and it'll be 400 per ipad per chromebook per laptop tablet what is there is there a limit on the number of devices then you could you ask for 20 laptops at 300 a pop 400 dollars or well it's less than 400 yeah it's well so as long as it's under 400 max okay so under 400 dollars if it costs less than that you'll get just what it costs you don't get okay just like you buy a 300 ipad you get a nicer you get a nicer laptop then yeah um no there's not a limit uh the way it works is the idea of this is also it's to close the homework gap for people that are are are not cannot afford to have the tablet or laptop or the internet activity where they are that's the key too it's about people who can't afford it so as a library you're just gonna say there's a part of the formula you say yes our patrons are in need of this they're in they're needy um and you buy as many as you think you're gonna need to lend out um for schools it's done by yes we know because we know our students and we have statistics 100 of our students don't have this at home and need it so you can ask for money to buy 100 100 chromebooks or whatever for libraries it's more of an ephemeral thing it's like you got to kind of guess how many would we possibly lend out what's the demand you've probably got statistics on that somewhere that you might know a way to figure that out and you there's no limit on how many you just you decide how you are determining the need and you just tell you sack we've used this process to you know these statistics that we know how many we might need to lend out and that's why we're asking for 20 laptops or or anywhere and there's our contact info email direct phone numbers call the 100 number it gets through forwarded to us as well um sam and i are both working partially at home partially in the office that's okay we get our email or our voice mails are sent to our email and we have access to those when we're working from home so we can always get your calls and emails so any are there anything else you want to wrap up and say sam i don't think so i i know that there's probably questions that'll come up later and just send us an email and we'll you know try and get you an answer as fast as we can any last minute desperate questions you guys want to ask right now get it into the questions section um like i said it's we're about 325 years we did run over our hour but we said we would um we wanted to make sure we get everything out there and any questions you had right now asked but reach out to us this is something we're going to be dealing with for the next year for us he'll wrap and beyond and that's wrap things up and during this webinar i got three more applications a minute awesome i don't know if there are people on this call or not on the call but looks like we just got a lot of thank yous coming in very informative we're happy that it was um download the you know if you grab the if you didn't grab the power point off of the handout section of the go-to webinar right now that's okay when i put the recording up it'll be linked there as well you'll have a copy there you can access as well as of the slides and another thing that another thing that i just thought of that you can do is if you want to look at the application you can open it up just don't submit it if you you know we're curious as to you know how the layout is it's pretty we're trying to make it as simple as possible um just your information you know identify that you're illegal established library meaning those two criteria that we talked about earlier and then the duns number with SIPA compliance and if you're not SIPA compliant it doesn't mean that you're not eligible it just means that if you are planning to use the money for those technology related things you have to be SIPA compliant so you couldn't spend it on you know like things that devices that weren't filtered yeah SIPA compliance not required it's only if you're going to plan on purchasing things that access the internet and work on getting connected to the internet right and then the assurances section which is all that boilerplate about non-discrimination and other things and then the two requirements that you will submit the invoices and the completion report those are the last two pieces that you need to do and that's it and if you go off of this it says ah are you sure you want to leave I just as a link to that at the bottom to go back to the main grant page and yes okay yep all right this lots of thank yous all right I think we will wrap it up and um thank you everybody for joining us this afternoon hopefully did get you everything you need to know about applying to our formula grants uh look for information coming about the youth in the library improvement grants email Sam or myself with any questions you may have yep and the recording will be up as soon as it's available I will my goal is to have it done by the end of the day tomorrow am I looking like yes as long as uh go to webinar and it goes on to our youtube channel go to webinar on youtube cooperate with me should have it by the end of tomorrow and I'll let everyone who attended today and registered today will get an email from me letting you know when it's ready and we'll change this link here to be the link to the actual recording um with the slides as well yep all right thank you everybody apply for that