 Hello everyone. My name is Charu Krishnan and I am with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I am accompanied today by some folks from our communications group as well as some of our attorneys from our general council's office. I would first like to thank you for joining us today. We are so excited to be offering this funding opportunity for the Pools Safely Grant Program, or PSGP as I may refer to it in this webinar. Please use the question box you should see in the control panel on the right of your screen to let me know if you can't hear me well or if you're having any other technical issues, and we will try to address those immediately. If you do not see the question box, please click the orange left arrow to bring it up. We will be taking questions through the question box. We will answer general questions at the end of this webinar, and more specific questions such as your specific jurisdiction's eligibility would be better directed to our email address, grants at cpsc.gov. I will be repeating this information later. The webinar slides were included as a handout and should be available to you in the control panel on the right of your screen. Again, if you do not see it, please click the orange left arrow to bring it up. You can download the handout to have available to you after the webinar. This way you can use the links which you won't be able to click on during the live presentation. In addition, the webinar slides, call audio, and call transcripts will be posted to the poolsafely.gov web page within 48 hours. The goal of today's presentation is to provide potential applicants an overview of the PSGP program to give information on the purpose and applicant and application eligibility. You can find information on the application and review process. A heads up on the post award requirements as well as resources and contact information for you to utilize during the application period. The PSGP is authorized under Section 1405 of the Virginia Graham Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, or the VGB Act. A total of 1.1 million is available for awards this year. An individual applicant may request up to 250,000 in federal funding. You are not required to request up to the full amount. The performance period of the award is two years. It is anticipated that the awards would be made July 2, 2018, with the project period starting July 16, 2018, and ending July 16, 2020. Here we have listed the CFDA and FOA numbers for this grant. There is a 90-day application window with applications due by April 2, 2018. This is a hard deadline. The funding opportunity will provide assistance to implement enforcement and education programs to prevent the drowning and drain entrapments of children in pools and spas. Funding is to be used specifically to, one, hire and train enforcement personnel for implementation and enforcement of standards under the state or local swimming pool and spa safety law. At least 50% of the funding must be used for this purpose. Some notes on hiring and training enforcement personnel include, hiring means to recruit, not to pay for the salaries of enforcement personnel. You use the grant for some portion of the salaries of those delivering or administering the grant, but not for enforcement personnel. Also, it does not need to be hire and train. Proposals can be geared toward either recruitment or training of enforcement officials. You will not be ineligible if you do not hire. Third, enforcement personnel need not be full-time. They can be part-time or seasonal or what have you. Lastly, officials with responsibility for enforcement may vary among jurisdictions. It may be the health department, building officials, or even the fire department. It is up to each jurisdiction to explain who the enforcement official is. The second purpose of the grant is to educate. That is educating pool construction and installation companies and pool service companies about the standards, as well as pool owners, pool operators, and other members of the public about the standards under the swimming pool and spa safety law, and about the prevention of drowning or entrapment of children using swimming pools and spas. What education means under number two may be broad. It is up to the applicant to demonstrate how the proposed method of education, whether formal training, water safety courses, PSAs, etc., will reach their intended audiences. Again, applicants do not need to educate all audiences listed, but audiences should relate back to the community population, and enforcement and education needs must be identified in the application introduction. The third purpose of the grant is to defray administrative costs associated with such training and education programs. Administrative costs associated with training and education programs under number three may be charged to the award, while administrative costs associated with the hiring and training of enforcement officials may not be charged to the award. Eligible entities are state and local governments that demonstrate to the satisfaction of CPSC that they have an enacted or amended state or local law that meets the requirements specified in section 14.06 of the BGB Act and provides for enforcement of the law. State or local swimming pool and spas safety law is referring to the requirements in section 14.06 of the VGBA. As you are probably aware, section 14.04 of the VGBA has requirements for drain covers and requirements for certain public pools to have secondary systems. These are not the relevant requirements for the grant program. Instead, the requirements are in section 14.06, and we will go into these requirements in more detail in the next slide. A state or local government meets the minimum state law requirements of the VGB Act if the state requires by statute four. The enclosure of all outdoor residential pools and spas built more than one year after the date of the enactment of such state or local law by barriers to entry that will effectively prevent small children from gaining unsupervised and unfettered access to the pool or spa and that pools and spas built more than one year after the date of the enactment of such state or local law have more than one drain, one or more unblockable drains, or no main drain and if the state or local government provides for enforcement of that law. It is very important to note that like the unblockable drain requirement, the requirement to enclose all outdoor residential pools and spas by barriers is within one year after the date of the enactment of such state or local law. That means the barrier requirement does not have to be retroactive. States that have adopted into law the 2015 or 2018 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code or the ISPSC may be eligible for this grant. So what does it mean to demonstrate the state law requirement? Applicants must submit a full copy of the applicable state or local laws. They must identify the specific sections of the applicable laws that meet each requirement in section 1406A1A and they must provide an explanation of how the applicable state or local law meets each requirement in section 1406A1A. Applicants that do not submit the above information or whose state or local law does not meet the requirements specified in the VGB Act will be determined ineligible. We strongly recommend working with your general counsel to put together this part of the application. Applicants may annotate their state or local law with the corresponding parts of VGB Act section 1406. Please do not reference materials that are not submitted with the application as these cannot be reviewed as part of the application and the application will be deemed ineligible. Also please send only the applicable sections of the state or local law, not your entire building code for instance. The requested amount of federal funding must be at least 50,000 and no more than 250,000. Documents counted in the page limits of the application may not exceed 80 pages and those include the application and budget narratives, the schedule, staffing plan, and other attachments that applicants wish to attach that are not specifically required or requested in the FOA. And applications must contain documents that are required for completeness and eligibility. That includes the SF-424 face page and state law eligibility documentation. Applications are due into Grants.gov by April 2, 2018 by 11.59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Extensions will only be considered for events such as the Grants.gov system being down for 24 consecutive hours or an extreme adverse event such as a federal disaster declaration. Having a family emergency or failing to complete your Grants.gov registration will not get you an extension. Only one application may be submitted for consideration from the same applicant organization. If more than one application is submitted by an applicant, CPSC will accept the applicant's last electronic submission validated by Grants.gov before the deadline date as the final application. Registration in Grants.gov is required and it can take up to one month so I suggest you start the process as soon as possible. In fact, start it as soon as you get off this call if you haven't done it yet. Incomplete registration in Grants.gov will not be a justification for an extension. The Grants.gov registration process involves these basic steps. The first is obtaining an organizational data universal numbering system or a DUNS number. Next, you must register the organization with the system for award management or SAM. Next, register the organization with Grants.gov. Then get authorized as an authorized organization representative or an AOR by the applicant organization with Grants.gov. Please refer to the link on the screen for additional guidance and the Grants.gov help line will also be provided at the end of this presentation. The following documents will be provided through Grants.gov. The first is the application for federal assistance or the SF-424. Next is the budget information for non-construction programs or the SF-424A. Then the assurances for non-construction programs or SF-424B. Then disclosure of lobbying activities, the SF-LLL as applicable. The Grants.gov lobbying form, which is required. And other attachment forms, which are attachments one through eight, which I'll explain a bit in the next slide. Detailed instructions for completing these documents are available within the FOA. Applicants will provide the following as other attachments in Grants.gov. Attachment one, which is a project narrative and is required for review. Attachment two, which is the budget narrative, which is required for review. Attachment three, which is the schedule, also required for review. Attachment four, the staffing plan required for review. Attachment five, the state law eligibility, which is required for completeness. Attachment six, indirect cost rate agreement as applicable. Attachment seven, the funding preference as applicable, which I'll explain a bit later. Attachments eight, which are other relevant documents as applicable. Please note, if attachments marked required for completeness are not uploaded, the application will be considered incomplete and non-responsive, thereby making the application ineligible. Ineligible applications will not proceed to objective review. If attachments marked required for review are not uploaded, the application's objective review score may be impacted negatively. The project narrative is comprised of four sections. The first is the introduction. Next is the work plan, which includes the scope of work, the schedule and collaborations, which are not mandatory. Third are resources and capabilities, which includes the staffing plan and budget narrative. And fourth, the project evaluation plan. The project narrative should address activities to be conducted over the entire project period. Please use the section headings for the narrative. The narrative is included in the 80-page limit. The narrative must be submitted in the following format. Line spacing should be single-spaced, 1.0. Font size should be 12-point. Paper size should be 8.5 by 11 inches. And the page margin size should be 1 inch. The funds requested and the object class categories between the SF424A and the budget narrative should match. Because there is no match or cost sharing requirements from non-federal resources, the budget should reflect 100% federal funds. The budget narrative must describe the scope of work to be performed within the project. Be sure to provide a detailed description for every line item on the SF424A form. Please refer to Appendix A in the guidance for more specifics of submitting the budget. Please note that because at least 50% of the total award must be spent on training and hiring of enforcement personnel, costs for these activities must be clearly identified within the budget narrative. Lack of a clear and detailed budget may impact your score or result in disallowed costs. The application review process can be broken down into three steps. The first is the initial review to determine eligibility. Did you submit everything? Do you have a state law, etc.? Next, applications that pass the initial stage are passed on to the Objective Review Committee, or the ORC, who reviews and scores applicants based on review criteria and determines whether the funding preference points can be applied. Then, CPSC creates a rank order list from the highest scores to the lowest scores. We will fund the application at the amount requested until there is no funding available. Those applicants who are funded will become grantees and receive a notice of award. An objective review of the applications will be performed to assess the merit of eligible applications based on the review criteria and the funding announcement. That includes the introduction, which is worth 25 points, the work plan, which is worth 30 points, resource and capabilities, which is worth 30 points, and the project evaluation plan, which is worth 15 points. For FY 2018 PSGP funding under this FOA, a preference shall be given to state and local governments with the greatest child drowning and pool safety needs. Each eligible application with the final ORC application review score of 70 or above will be assessed to receive a five-point adjustment. Priority will be given to state and local governments that have not received a grant under the VGB Act in a preceding fiscal year. It is important to note that an eligible application must receive a base ORC review score of 70 in order to be assessed to receive a funding preference point adjustment. That adjustment needs to be requested separately, and you will have to provide documentation for that. An application must clearly set forth accurate and reliable data demonstrating that the number of incidents involving child drownings, non-fatal submersions, and drain entrapment in this jurisdiction relative to applicable populations significantly exceeds comparable national statistics during comparable periods. Information on National Pool and Spa Injury Statistics is available at the link provided on the slide. This is just one source of data you are not obligated to use this particular source. If the application is funded, a notice of award or an NOA will be issued as the authorizing document. The NOA contains the following information, the terms of the award, the conditions of the award, the approved budget, the amount of federal funds awarded, and a project description. If you are awarded, do expect to complete quarterly progress reports, a site visit, and a final report to measure progress and performance of the grant's goals and objectives. Here are some essential websites for your reference. Grants.gov is where the actual application will be submitted, and as I have mentioned before, please register yourself there as soon as possible. The second website is where you will find the actual FOA and some other useful information about the grant opportunity. Please remember to download the handout to be able to use the links in this presentation, or look for these slides on poolsafely.gov in the next couple of days. For any issues related to Grants.gov, which could be trouble accessing the system, trouble uploading documents, that sort of thing, please direct your questions to the contacts at the Grants.gov contact center listed on the slide. If you have questions pertaining to eligibility requirements or clarifications on the definitions of things or anything else related to the FOA itself, please email grants at cpsc.gov, and we will try to get back to you as soon as possible. We'll now have a look at the questions submitted during the presentation. You can also continue to submit questions at this time as well. Please remember to use the question box on the right of your screen. Okay, we have one question regarding, will there be a report that provides outcomes for the last year Grants were awarded? So we do have some information about previous awardees posted on poolsafely.gov. So it is possible to look there and see what, we had five awardees in 2016, and there's a description of their programs and how they were able to use the funds. So I would refer you to poolsafely.gov for that. The next question is, what will CPSC do if they receive more than one application from a state, different organizations? So we generally want a jurisdiction to have one unified application. So it should not come from different organizations. So I think you should coordinate together to have one unified application. If you have specific questions though, I would ask you to email us at grants at cpsc.gov, and we might be able to give a more detailed response. Okay, the next question is, can you explain the five point adjustment and the documentation needed? Okay, so the five point adjustment has to do with the funding preference for jurisdictions that can show statistically that they've had more drowning cases. So as I mentioned, an applicant would first have to receive a score of 70 regardless of the funding preference to actually be assessed for this funding preference. I had a slide where I showed a possible source of information for statistics that you could include to show that your jurisdiction would have a greater need. So I would definitely look at that source and see if that's something you can utilize to make a case. You know, we don't have specific requirements necessarily for what has to be included, but you do have to make a compelling case for, you know, why you think you should receive that five point adjustment. If you have specific questions about your jurisdiction, though, again, I would email grants at cpsc.gov, and that's something we can probably help you out with a little more. Okay, one of the questions is, on page 19, you state, refer to Appendix A and the guidance for more specifics of submitting the budget. The Appendix is part of the actual FOA, which you can get on poolsafely.gov. So that's where you can find that information. Okay, there's some questions about the slides. How do we get the slides after the presentation? I don't seem to be able to download currently or go to links. We've been having a lot of technical difficulties today, and so I just want to mention, you know, why we had some issues in the beginning. Our internet and phones all went down within 20 minutes of this presentation. So if for whatever reason that handout isn't allowing you to access the links or actually download it, we can email the slide presentation out to all of the attendees, and we'll also be posting it to poolsafely.gov within the next two days. So we'll definitely get it to you, and again, I apologize for that. Okay, the next question is, for clarification on the budget, is the maximum $250,000 for the two-year, is it for the two-year period? Yes, it spans the entire two-year period. So you do not have to apply for the first and second year of the project period separately. It's all in one. The next question is asking, for enforcement, will all community pools need to be upgraded to comply with the VGB Act? I would say this is Barbara Little. So for the requirements of Section 1404 of the VGB Act, public pools are responsible for complying with that section, regardless of applying for a grant program, and specifically Section 1404 of the Act is the section that requires that drain covers be compliant and that pools that do not have an unblockable drain have one of five enumerated backup systems, like suction vacuum release systems, so that those requirements are separate from the grant program. Now, for the requirements for the grant program under 1406, we require that the state or the jurisdiction that is applying has a code or some law that requires barriers to entry on all residential pools, and the second requirement has the anti-entrapment requirement. And the enforcement in the grant program is intended to make sure that the state or jurisdiction is enforcing those requirements. Okay, the next question is, if we order pool safely materials in bulk, will there be a fee or any cost for shipping? This is Patty Davis with the Communications Department. Those pool safely materials are free for all of the participants, so you can use those. There is just a limit on the number that you can get, but we do make those available to you, free of charge. Okay, we have some messages regarding the handout. It sounds like we can, somebody was able to access the handout, but you just have to click on the arrow besides handouts so it drops down, so hopefully that's helpful to folks. Somebody else mentioned if it helps, the handouts are listed above the chat box. Okay, somebody noted that the pool safely.gov website says it is undergoing maintenance. Do you know when it will be back up, or where we can find the historical grant recipient programs? The website is probably down because of our internet. And so that happened sometime after one today, and so I'd imagine it's either back up at this point, I believe, or we'll be back up shortly, so please check back. Okay, we have a question regarding information about allowable education and drowning prevention activities. Is there any information about these activities to put funds towards, such as life vest loaner programs, signage for pools in natural water, purchased radio print material, pool alarms, props for training, et cetera? Yes, some of these are certainly allowable ways to use the funds. Anything you're using for training purposes, administrative fees such as for printing materials and that sort of thing, are permissible, but just please keep in mind that 50% of the funding does have to go towards hiring or training enforcement personnel. So you first have to meet that requirement, and whatever is left, the rest of the 50%, you could use for those sorts of things. If you have specific questions, again, I'd ask you to email us. So this is Barbara Little again, and we have a question about whether a nonprofit could apply for the grant or whether it needs to be part of a government entity, and the applicant must be state government or local government or part of a governmental entity, so the nonprofit could not apply on its own. And again, if any of our answers are unclear, or if you require additional information, please feel free to follow up with an email to grants.gov. We had another question regarding the limit on pools safely materials that each grantee can receive. We can't give you an exact amount right now. It depends on inventory and how many people are looking to receive those materials, so I guess that is to be determined. Okay, somebody provided a link which has the Pool Safely Grant Report to Congress, which is a PDF file, and it has more info from grantors, so thank you for that. That is on the poolsafely.gov website, and again it's called the Report to Congress. Okay, can you confirm what expenses the grant funds pay for and that they do not include salaries? So the distinction that is made here regarding salaries is that you cannot use the grants to pay for salaries for enforcement personnel. You can use it for people who are either delivering or administering the grant, and that's usually going to be people who are already on your staff and will be using some part of their time towards administering the grant, but you cannot use it for the salaries of actual enforcement personnel. So for instance, if you are hiring lifeguards or somebody to teach people about the requirements or even to do any of the training, that sort of stuff, those salaries cannot be applied. If you have specific questions about somebody that you're considering, then please email grants at cpsc.gov. Okay, somebody asked, can you email out the handouts later and email a link to the historical grants recipient program? Yeah, I can certainly do that. We will send a mass email out to everybody who registered and include that information. Somebody asked, can we use our own materials and not only pool safely materials? There are certain materials that we do require that you use, but I think you are allowed to use your own materials as well as long as you've used certain ones that CPSC provides. We can, you know, address specific questions through email if you have something particular in mind, but I believe that should be fine. So I think there might have been a few questions we didn't address and those are because we're going to have to do some research on a couple of those to get back to you. And like I mentioned, we have everybody's email address and the questions come out in a log, so we have all this information and we'll be getting back to you within the next few days with a response. Anything else that you've thought of, please email grants at cpsc.gov. Okay, and thank you so much for attending today. I hope this was helpful and again, sorry for the technical difficulties in the beginning. Thank you.