How to Survive a Grant Monitoring Visit

Some agencies will perform a review (monitoring visit) of the grantee’s files after the grant period has expired. The purpose of this review is to determine whether the grantee carried out all of its administrative and financial responsibilities in an acceptable manner. Among the items generally covered in such a review are the following:
• If a public hearing was required, did the grantee hold the hearing, provide ample advance notice to the public, and retain documentation of what transpired?
• Was any competitive bidding handled in a fair and equitable manner, with ample opportunity given to any Disadvantaged Business Enterprise?
• Was the work to be funded by the agency properly inspected prior to any disbursements of funds?
• Were all financial transactions completely documented and properly handled consistent with the policies of both the grantee and the funding agency?
• If the project involved direct assistance limited to individuals with certain characteristics — i.e., low and moderate income status, did the grantee properly qualify each beneficiary?
• Were project goals and objectives met?
• Did the grantee evaluate the project for its success in meeting the identified need?

Some programs monitor every grant. It may even take a period of a few years after the expiration of the grant, depending on staff, but the monitoring will be done. Other agencies monitor only a small percentage of their grants on a random basis. Still others send in the monitoring team only when there is reason to suspect there are problems.

Most monitoring visits of which I am aware are done in the spirit of trying to assist the grantee. Naturally, if problems are found, corrective action must be taken. However, most funding agencies tend to take the attitude that the monitoring visit is more of a technical assistance session. However, if monies are spent improperly, either on purpose or inadvertently, the grantee must generally repay the entire amount in question. One example of this would be a grantee which did not properly qualify certain individual beneficiaries of assistance. If this were the case, they would generally have to repay the amount of direct assistance provided to persons who did not qualify under the guidelines of the program.