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Congratulations on your FY2009 LSTA grant project! Although LSTA grant funds may not be expended or obligated, and project activities may not legally start until October 1, 2008, there are several pre-project activities that may begin now.

Has an authorized person (Library Director, Principal, Superintendent, Fiscal Officer, etc.) signed the contract and have all four copies been returned to the Illinois State Library? Once the contract has been executed, a copy will be returned to you. Execution of the contract is required before any grant funds will be released.

Right now, it seems like there will be a lot of time to complete your LSTA project activities. Because daily crises will inevitably arise in your library, the project timeframe of October 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009, will quickly shrink to nothing before your very eyes. Much of the preliminary planning work that does not require LSTA funds to be obligated can be done now.

If you are buying equipment or materials, begin reviewing professional selection tools, making decisions, and talking to vendors, so that on October 1 or soon thereafter, your orders are ready to submit to the vendor.

If you are working with outside agencies, now is the time to call them to reconfirm their role in the project and set meeting dates after October 1.

Now is the time to be gathering baseline statistics to use for comparison purposes later when you will be asked to evaluate whether or not your project is meeting its objectives. Go back to objectives as written in your application and set up the mechanism early on for gathering the statistics needed.

Now is also the time to talk with your bookkeeping, fiscal staff or the grants and contracts department so that they, and you, understand what work will be required on the project (handling funds, record keeping, tracking staff paid with LSTA funds, paying bills, advertising for part-time positions, bidding, timely reporting) and exactly who will do it.

While you may not obligate any grant funds or start project activities until October 1, take September to position your library and be ready to start your LSTA grant project. The adventure will soon begin!

Be sure to sign up for the Grants Management Workshop at the Illinois State Library on October 3rd or 6th. If you have any questions before then, please don’t hesitate to call Karen Egan at 217.782.7749.