FY24 Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

Transcript also available as a PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar, “FY 2024 Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program,” hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. At this time, it’s my pleasure to introduce David Lewis, senior policy advisor with BJA, to begin the presentation. David.

DAVID P. LEWIS: Thank you, Daryl. Welcome, everybody, to today’s presentation. As Daryl mentioned, I’m David Lewis. I’m a senior policy advisor here at the Bureau of Justice Assistance. I’ve been here for 20 years, and I’ve been doing the sessions on a number of different programs.

Today, we’re going to go over a few items. But before we get started, I want to give you a little background and overview of the Office of Justice Programs where the Bureau of Justice Assistance is located. As you can see on the screen, the Bureau of Justice Assistance is one of six entities under the Office of Justice Programs and we have a lot of different functions out there. And we are just one of three grant-making components of the U.S. Department of Justice. The other one is the Office on Violence Against Women and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services or the COPS Office.

We have a very specific mission at the Department of Justice and it is to assist state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement as well as our federal partners. We work together with all entities across public safety, and they include our partners in the tribal entities out there. So, we are really out there to work not only with law enforcement, public safety, and criminal justice agencies, but helping you in working with your communities. And we look at organizations, nonprofit organizations that are focused also on reducing crime, recidivism, and really, unnecessary confinement, and really dealing with a fair and safe criminal justice system.

At this time, I would like to also welcome you on behalf of our director at the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Karhlton F. Moore. Karhlton is very supportive of all the programs and our partners here at the Bureau of Justice Assistance and has been actively involved with spreading the message about BJA and all the work that’s being done and really listening to what you have to say. I will tell you right now that Director Moore has a very open-door policy and really likes to hear from the field. We don’t believe the old federal thought process of pushing things down to the state and locals, tribal, and territorial, but really listening to what they want.

So with that said, I just want to kind of make an opening statement on behalf of the director that if there are things that you feel are not being addressed in the field that you think that BJA may be able to assist with, we would like to hear from you. So that’s kind of my invitation to you to be involved with changing things and making things a little bit better for you.

Now at the Bureau of Justice Assistance, we really have these four entities that we work with. The two that you’ll be working with the most is our Policy Office. Our Policy Office, who I work for, really is out there and sharing with you the solicitation—building it, identifying the deliverables, the goals, objectives, and we do the front-end part of the solicitation.

Our Programs Office, who many of you have already worked with, after a grant or an award is issued, you work directly with our Programs Office. And this is from everything from budgets, dealing with deliverables, if you need to change things, if you need to do adjustments, you’re working with our Programs Office. We do have an Operations Office and that’s really dealing with our budgets and contracts. And then finally, we deal with the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program that you most likely won’t deal with here. But that’s dealing with officers and public safety service, like fire and EMS, that are injured or killed in the line of duty.

We have really five major strategic focus areas and these are really to look at, in looking at the big picture is, how do we improve public safety? How do we reduce crime using crime prevention? And how do we integrate evidence-based, research-driven strategies? In other words, looking for promising practices out there. We know a lot of people think they have great ideas, but what we do is help to liaison between somebody that has an idea where somebody may have already done something and we help them try to bring that forward and bringing an idea to reality.

Now, this kind of leads us directly into program effectiveness. How do we take a look at that? Is the program doing what you intended it to do? So we look at a lot of times the importance of sharing information and having performance measures to really take a look, is the program doing what the expectation was? And then we want to always look for excellence. Look for you as an organization, look for us as BJA, as OJP, and DOJ, that we’re putting funding out there to really look and bring our best foot forward.

Now if I had to capture it real quick on what we do at BJA and at OJP, and you look at the four major categories here: Fund, Educate, Equip, and Partner. And all these kinds of things out there, it takes working together, it takes funds, it takes collaborative and cooperative efforts, and it really takes an opportunity for somebody to identify and be that strategic champion to bring all the different entities together.

This is just a brief summary of what we’re going to talk about today. And we’re going to talk about very specifically, you know, as mentioned in the opening slide, this webinar is specifically designed to talk about the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, or we like to call [it] PDMP.

Now, when we look at this particular program, it is a grant program and it’s specifically designed for state entities. So there’s limited individuals that can apply for this program, but it also has a training and technical assistance component to it. Now it’s really—what we hope to do here is strengthen the way that you do business. We don’t want you—we’re not mandating that you change the way you do business or alter the way you do business, but we feel and we definitely believe that states know the best way to do this. So we’re out there to support what you need to do, to either to support your state laws or looking at interconnecting with other states or other entities within your state or areas. So, we look a lot at administrative policies and procedures and how do we help with those. And how do we look and see, you’re already doing this, but how do we take a look at maybe involving someone else or sharing information with another entity. So we’re always looking at the next generation thing. So in the very basic—and I have to make a point of this—is that our mission at BJA or at DOJ, excuse me, is to uphold the rule of law, keep the country safe, and to protect civil rights.

Now under this particular program, we’re really looking at how do we improve the capacity for you, as an applicant, as part of your PDMP program, work in conjunction with law enforcement agencies, other health officials, and look at analyzing controlled substance prescription data, and other things that are out there that are of concern to the communities and to the nation.

So, we’re really looking at the collection, analysis, and reporting of information on prescribing, dispensing, and use of prescription drugs. And this is within your particular state, commonwealth, district, or territory. And we’re really looking at how do we take a look at the citizens? What we actually need for them, and what laws are out there pertaining to prescription drug diversion? So we’re, as I mentioned before, our customers are state, local, tribal, and territorial. And in this particular case specifically, state programs are out there, the state prescription drug monitoring programs.

Now we’re looking out there and we talk about this sharing of data—and I’ve been doing this program for a few years, I’d done it previously, had moved out of the program and came back—the information sharing is extremely, extremely important. So we look at, you know, how is this being done? How are states doing it? How do we share information and how does it affect other programs? And what’s the national scope on whatever thing’s being done in the PDMP world?

Now the one thing that I will tell you is, because this is DOJ funding, there is one objective out there that’s important to note, is that you’re receiving BJA funding under this particular program, there is no restrictions on who you may choose as a state to use as your provider to help you share this information or do your job. So there is one caveat and it comes as a special condition: that you must be able to exchange data utilizing the RxCheck hub. So if you are a new applicant or if you don’t have a current connection, if you’re issued a grant out of this, your grant funds may be used for whatever cost that may be needed to make that connection to the RxCheck hub or to continue to maintain that particular connection.

Now under this particular solicitation, and I talk about this particular solicitation because if you look at the congressional allotment for funding, there’s a little more than what we have in this solicitation that’s being dispersed to state PDMPs in a little different manner. But in this particular solicitation, there is, we will plan to issue up to—and that’s up to—$10 million for the solicitation. The applicants may request up to $1 million. Doesn’t have to be a million, it could be anywhere in the scope where you think that’s viable or what you need, and it will be for a 24-month period. And of course, and we’ll talk a lot about this in a little bit, anything that’s in the budget has to be an allowable item. And we look at basically up to 10 awards under this solicitation. And you’ll say, “Well, that’s normal math, 10 times $1 million equals $10 million.” But what happens sometimes is we’ll have state programs come in and ask for less money. And if they ask for less money, we may be able to do more than 10 awards, but that’s usually what we’re looking at, about 10 awards.

Now this is a question we get a lot of—about what are allowable costs under this program. And basically, it’s employment costs for PDMP staff members, administrators, and your service providers. And then there are certain caveats out there. If it’s a service provider, how you present that in your budget is extremely important. And all these, the breakdown numbers, have to be broken down into your budget. For example, you know, if it’s a staff member, this is his salary, this is his benefits. If it’s a service provider, it’s contractual, it’s a supplement or as a, sorry, it’s a sub-recipient. So you have all those kind of things in there. And when you’re doing this, especially for the employees, because sometimes you have people working in multiple sections, you need to put in the percent of time associated with the program. For example, you might have somebody that’s 100 percent, you might have somebody that’s 50 percent, somebody that’s 25 percent, and sometimes that deals with maybe web design if you have a public website or things like that. So that shows that breakdown there.

There are associated agency costs. For example, if you’re in a state where maybe as part of the PDMP program you have to use the state IT services, you can allow for some of that funding to be able to support those other agencies out there. You might have a program where you’re supporting some law enforcement task or working with prosecutors that you may allocate some funds for that. It might be a public relations entity that you’re working with to get information out about the program. You also can use it to purchase equipment.

Now I will tell you, and that’s why it’s highlighted here, it has to be specifically used for the PDMP work. It could be laptops, printers, you know, copy machines—we’ll have people come in and ask for those kind of things—but it could also be for printing costs, for community awareness programs. Now I will tell you right now, our budget people take a really close look at that. If you’re buying some copy machine, it has to be just for the PDMP office work or whatever. We get a lot of times in larger public safety entities that they buy one copy machine, they’re using it for all the different sections in there. So that has to be spelled out in the narrative part of your budget.

We also allow for education, training, conferences, and everything must be reasonable. And a lot of times, because I have this on there, a lot of times people ask, “What’s the difference between education and training? Are they not the same?” And education may be we’re educating somebody or sharing information, it might be for your community, it might be for law enforcement. And then training is how to do something. In other words, you’re providing training on how to participate or those kinds of things. And conferences, we don’t need to explain that one.

The one thing that we do recommend though is if you are hosting a training, it should be, make it available to other agencies in a geographic location. For example, you may be hosting a training and you’re in State A and then you may want to put that training out there for other contiguous states. Or if it’s a particular training that you’re doing for PDMP staff that might have some bearing or reflecting something for law enforcement, you may want to invite some law enforcement agencies or you may want to invite prosecutors or whatever. Whatever you think is best for the program. We don’t really gauge that, but we do think if there’s training out there that you’re bringing in, that you may want to share it with people that are working within your program.

It’s also for, the funds can be used to attend BJA-sponsored meetings and events. For example, in August there will be an—you won’t have this funding in August—but for future, there’s usually a national meeting, there’s some regional meetings, and we do host some training events.

The biggest thing I can’t stress enough is, when you’re putting items in your budget: One, they got to be reasonable. Two, they have to be allowable. And three, they have to be necessary for program activities. The one thing is, if you don’t have a copy of the OJP Financial Guide, I recommend that if you’re the grant administrator that you have a copy of that readily available. And it answers just about every question you might have with funding issues.

Now what are some of our unallowable costs? In PDMPs, there’s not a lot of restrictions, but I will tell you right now, this one we put on all our grants now, is no vehicles of any kind, this includes rentals or leases, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)—that’s just a standard that we put out there. And surprisingly enough, no foreign travel or excessive travel. For example, if 50 percent of your award is to do traveling around your state, that may raise some red flags. I’m not saying that you couldn’t do it, but if it could be explained on what the value is of it, it’s something that could be evaluated. Foreign travel, there’s absolutely no foreign travel permitted under this.

And we look at service contracts and costs, and these are more like cell phones. You could purchase the cell phone but not the service. You could have a laptop and have wireless service. You could pay the laptop but not the wireless service. Why? You ask, “Why can I get the item but not the service that goes along with it?” The reason for that is cell phone service, wireless service for laptops are ongoing costs. They‘re repeating costs. You have a cost annually and you have—and the grant would only go on for X amount of time. So that may extend past the length of the grant. So those are things that they don’t permit.

For example, if you are a previous awardee from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and you ask for something that’s identical in a previous award, that’ll probably get struck out of there. Standard equipment that should be issued by the agency, people say, “Well what does that really mean?” Well, these are things, the everyday things, that you should have in your department. It might be pens, pencils; it might be rulers. I mean, we get all kind of very interesting requests that come in for grant funding.

So this is a big one, I probably should’ve highlighted this: If you are having an individual meeting in your area, you are not permitted to use any grant funding for food or refreshments for anything. Presentations, trainings, or meetings, you can’t use funds from the grant. That doesn’t mean you can’t have it there. If somebody else chooses to provide those services there, it just has—you got to make sure that you’re not using any grant funding for this.

And of course, these are ones that we put in all our grants. You can’t buy land or do any construction projects and security enhancements or equipment provided to any non-government entity. In other words, something that you’re providing that might be for a partner that you might have to take—I would always ask the question, if there’s a partner and it’s something that you’re doing is part of the grant, always talk to our programs people, and they can clarify any questions that you might have.

Now, agency eligibility. Again, this is a very closed group. It’s only available to the 50 state PDMPs, territorial PDMPs, and Native American tribal organizations—you’ll see the two entities there. The one thing I will tell you there though is, if you’re applying under the Native American tribal organizations or governments, you have to—the application has to come in and it has to be connected to an established PDMP in that area that you’re in. So that’s very important, that that would be one of the conditions that you’re going to have to meet.

Now we always look at—we always consider BJA and any OJP grants, if it’s multiple agencies moving together—or going together, for example, if you have a two states or three states who are going together and to apply, and then we always look at that because that’s working together, you know, collaboration is very important. But I will tell you right now if you do that, you have to pick one entity that’s the primary and the other ones will be sub-recipients or sub-grantees. The other ones that would be eligible for this, because there is some supplemental funding happening for FY 2023 PDMP, if that entity does not accept the supplement funding, they can come in and apply for 2024 funding.

Deliverables for the program. I think a lot of you are very familiar with these. But, you know, we’re looking at, how do you improve capacity? You know, is it efficient and effective? Are we looking at, you know, is there something you need to improve the collection of the data or how you’re sharing the data? Looking at new ways to share information with law enforcement, prosecutors, public health officials, treatment providers, and/or drug courts. So we’re really looking at building that collaboration, cooperation with other entities.

The big thing is—for this is sharing information across states—across those state lines. And I know that’s especially important because, you know, we hear this about people, you know, kind of doctor-shoppers driving across state lines to get prescriptions, those kind of things. So sharing that information becomes extremely important.

We also are very interested, if there is an emerging technology out there, if you see something that may help you do what you’re doing—taking that on. How does it improve intrastate and interstate information sharing?

So we look at—you know, the big thing is—and we got this and we changed it and updated it a little bit over the last year, last two years, I believe—is really looking at the staffing needs. We hear from PDMPs across the country that, you know, people retiring, not enough people in their staffing, and so forth. So you can use this to—really, it’s one of the things to take a look at. How do you—do you have the appropriate staff needed to do the work for PDMPs in your particular state? We look at training, you know, how do you develop and make training available? What informational, educational materials that you’re drafting and sending them out there and sharing them. Again, we like for you to share what you’re doing in your state, might be beneficial to another state. So we always take a look at those kind of things that say, hey, I’m doing stuff in this—in my state. Somebody else takes a look at that. I know at some of these national meetings we have, that’s one of the things that’s important: that people are sharing information, showing examples of things that they’re actually doing.

Now the one thing is—and this is—we added this this year. And you guys have been doing this already, PDMPs across the country have been doing this already. But if you’re doing something new, if you’re doing something that really helps to do your work, is looking at it to see that it’s replicable or transportable. And the difference between the two are: transportable would be—maybe I have six elements in my program, and one of them might work someplace else. Can I transport that kind of thought process to my area? The other one would be, replicable is, “I’m doing something with this particular program, and I just want to take the whole thing and bring it to my state.” So we’re really looking at these kind of things and being able to share that with other PDMPs.

Now, the one thing that we would ask at BJA, we have this in there specifically as a deliverable, that if you are doing this kind of thing or you’re doing something that’s beneficial, that you’re willing to be able to talk to other PDMPs on this is how we did it, these are the problems that we saw, these are the successes we had. Those things are extremely important.

Now, we’ve heard this from the field a lot—that you wanted to make sure that the data that you had was quality data and it was integral. So that’s extremely important. And also that you have the appropriate reports and really taking the time to analyze what those reports are telling you. And then the last one here we talked earlier is maintaining that connection to RxCheck.

Now we have a two-step application process that many of you are aware of. And the first is step one, and that’s submitting the required documents to Grants.gov. That particular deadline is August 9th at 8:59 p.m. And then the step two is, after you get that done, you will have to put in a full application in our JustGrants program. And that program deadline is August 16th at 8:59 p.m. Now this, you’ll notice, these have changed. And a few years ago, it used to be 11:59 at night, now it’s 8:59. Very important to document that. I will also tell you that if you miss the August 9th number, you can’t go move on to the August 16th number for JustGrants. You have to complete that first. That’s a very easy step in Grants.gov, there’s only like three things that you have to submit. I would say do that first. You don’t have to do them right away. In other words, you don’t have to move forward, you can do that first. If you decide you’re not going to do an application in JustGrants, that’s fine, whatever. But get that done first so you can at least be eligible for the second portion.

Now, required documents in the application. Very first point, the proposal abstract. And I will tell you right now, if you read that, there are very clear description on what we want to see in the abstract. The abstract is really a capture. In other words, this is a summary, maybe one or two paragraphs. It’s not pages. It’s just a summary of what you plan to do with your project. And that is very important to us because for us to get continuing funding, we report to Congress. And it helps us that we have that very clear and concise abstract that we could let Congress know is, that’s what this state’s doing, that’s what this program’s doing. And we are responsible to provide that information for all programs funded under the Harold Rogers PDMP Program.

The proposal narrative has a few elements in it. So you have a description of the issue or problem and then your narrative, and then you have your capabilities and capacities, and then you have your performance measures. You have to make sure that you address all of those items. I will also tell you is, it gives you very specific criteria for when you’re supporting this proposal narrative. How many pages it can be, what the margins are on the paper, the font size that it has to be. It also tells you that, like, the timeline or some things are not part of the page restriction. So you need to read those directions very carefully and make sure you’re following them.

The one thing that I will tell you is, a lot of times—because we’ll talk about this in a second, about peer reviewers, because peer reviewers look at this—if an applicant can’t follow the directions for submitting the application, are they going to be a good awardee for BJA to be able to follow the directions?

The last one I’ll mention is if you have any memoranda of understanding or cooperative agreements with other entities—for example, it might be with a law enforcement agency or prosecutor’s office or [unintelligible]—we ask you to add those. We have it here under the required documents. It is not a mandated required document. We like to see them, but if you didn’t have them in there, it most likely will not get disqualified for just that one item. The other two—the budget forms, narrative, and abstract—if you don’t have those basics, we could disregard that particular application for not following the required document specifications.

Now here’s a list of all the other documents that are out there. These are not mandatory. You fill them out, provide them. They’re very important to us that we have this information. I will tell you, and I’ll make two points on here. Resumes of key personnel: when you’re talking about—because there’s a page limitation on this—when you’re talking about capacities and capabilities, you can put brief summaries in that proposal narrative, but we recommend that it’s important, especially for the peer reviewers and us here at BJA, that we take a look at the resumes of those people that are mentioned in that section. So you add those in there. Those attachments are not—they don’t count against the page limits—but it’s important that we see that information.

The other thing is letters of support. If you’re going to have letters of support from congressional people, governors, attorneys general, or any of those kinds of things, they have to be submitted as part of the application. In other words, they have to be an attachment in the application. You could send them afterwards, after the application has been submitted, but I can’t guarantee if this— and if this does happen it’s because there’s a lot of things, a lot of programs going on here at BJA and OJP—that will get into the packet. Because whatever you submit is what is evaluated as part of the peer review process.

Now this is the review process that I mentioned. The very first thing that we do is we evaluate whether or not the application submitted, the applicant is eligible. In other words, it meets those criteria. And the second one is, as I mentioned, is we look at the required documents. Then we conduct what we call a peer review process. And what the peer review process is, is we use—and this is not BJA representatives at this level, these are professionals from the field—we get…three create a panel, three peer reviewers we bring in, and they’re the ones that evaluate the application process that comes in. After they do all the evaluation and they score the application for different criteria and items, they—we get a list on how each application was scored. And that’s what BJA takes a look at, and that’s really the first time that we get a chance to look at the application; it’s after they have been scored by the peer review team.

So we take a look and we evaluate it, we look at the recommendations. Again, recommendation comes from the peer review team in what order, basically how they scored and so forth. Then we take a look at the budgets, and we verify that everything in the budget is an allowable cost or that it is categorized properly. In other words, it may have this as an indirect cost that it should maybe be a contract or whatever. So we take a look at that. There is a possibility that if you put something in the wrong category, it wouldn’t not allow the application to go forth, but our programs people or the policy people will reach out and say, “hey, is this what you really need?" And they may have you change that before any award is issued. So we look… and that’s part… and then after we do all that, we look at the approval process. We select the applications that we intend to fund, and then you will get a notification if you’re an applicant whether you are successful or unsuccessful, you will get a notification through email either way.

And then after an award or proposed award is issued, there’s still one final step, and that’s the final budget clearance. They will go kind of through that, our budget people go through that, and again, verify again. Because we have a responsibility, because this is congressional funding, that we cannot allow something to go out there that’s not an allowable cost or is contrary to the financial guide. So that’s why there’s several checks and balances in dealing with budget issues.

Now, here are some things I’ll keep in mind. I will tell you I’ve been, as I mentioned, I’ve been at the Bureau of Justice Assistance for 20 years. Prior to that, I was a police officer for 26 years. And being on this side of the wall just now and looking at things, and previously serving in law enforcement, I could tell you absolutely why I didn’t get my applications weren’t approved, because I didn’t do all the right things, the things that I’m going to share with you right here.

So the very first thing—I can’t stress this enough, a probably should have had this in bold and had it highlighted—is read the entire solicitation. Everything in there has a meaning. And I know sometimes there are, you know, 30, 35 pages for our solicitations, but there are very important points in there that you need to meet to be a successful applicant.

Now the very first thing is, you know, before you can start the application process, because it’s tedious, that you have to make sure that you’re eligible to apply. The other thing I would recommend that your budget numbers are correct, and since this is a 24-month program, that you have a budget year one, a budget year two, and all the numbers add up correctly. I know in talking to our peer reviewers, if they see budgets and numbers aren’t adding up correctly or they don’t have the appropriate narrative, they score them lower. And that hurts the chances of getting funding.

I talked about, you know, the allowed spaces. Be able to clearly articulate what you’re trying to do, make it clear. If they ask for something, give them that, and then fill in all the things around it. The one thing is you need to really be knowledgeable of those deadlines. If you are having any problems—let me just add this in there—if you’re having any problems like, I go to Grants.gov and I’m having a technical problem, there are numbers in the solicitation that tells you who you contact. If you have a technical problem, there is a possibility for a review to see if that was a technical problem on our side, but I will tell you it needs to be a technical problem on our side and not a technical problem on your side.

So, the other thing is, too, is do not hesitate. There’s contact information in there—and I should have highlighted this, too— it says, “do not assume.” Do not assume that you know what we’re asking for. If you see, if you have a question about anything on there, reach out and ask the question to get it clarified. So you are provided specifically what we’re looking for out of our successful applicants. And double check to make sure all the required documents are attached. And I can’t stress this enough—and I’m probably the biggest violator of this—about waiting until the last minute. So, try to get that started and get things started as soon as possible.

Now, I’m just going to go over some real quick, I’m going to go over some resources that are available to you as applicants. This is the actual solicitation that’s available online. If you just put in FY 24 BJA PDMP, the document on the left, you’ll see, it’s our solicitation announcement. Then that gold bar there on the left, mid-left, you’ll see that it says, “Download.” You hit that and it’ll download it in a PDF document for you. The area that’s circled there will bring the document up to the right and that’s the summary sheet. That summary sheet tells you very clearly what’s involved in those 35 pages of the solicitation, and it gives you the links to get additional information right there. So it makes it very easy—kind of, this should be your outline to get started for the solicitation.

Now I mentioned to you that these are our help lines: Grants.gov and JustGrants. We have all that information there, I saw Daryl put it in the comments also. Please copy those and have those readily available because it’s not just for this award, these are universal across all awards available through BJA.

Now, this page right here, and again, you’ll see the link there at the bottom, these are all resources available for you as part of the OJP Grant Application Resource Guide. These are all hyperlinks that takes your all things to get you additional information on applying for money at BJA, and some of the other things that you need as part of the process.
Again, I’ll make this a reminder of the dual submissions: August 9th for Grants.gov; August 16th for JustGrants.

These are some links that we have out there, and I see Daryl put them in the chat also. These are out there. I talked to you about the Grants Financial Guide. It’s very important, kind of like the thing that you need to have with you all the time. We talked about some resources and some online training.

You can stay… we announce a lot of our things out there on what’s available. You should be locked into these. I would tell you right now, if you’re looking for funding, the one thing I can’t stress more than enough is that you can subscribe to all the things that we have. So if you have that in there, they’ll send you an email to let you know, "Hey, this particular solicitation open or this is one that you might be looking for." This is where we have some additional questions out there that you can go onto and get that information out there.

And this is the one thing that… I’ll kind of stress these again: read the entire solicitation, ask questions, remember the dual deadlines, apply early—can’t stress that enough. Double check these three items here, and any problems entering the application, contact that technical advisor and get it in there as what we would call it, a “ticket,” so that it’s in there as, “I was having problems with this,” and we can look at it for an appeal.

I would tell you right now, if you’re looking out there, if you’re looking for funding out there, always look at the BJA website, the OJP website, but I would also tell you that if you’re not subscribing or you’re not familiar with Grants.gov: Grants.gov has 26 federal agencies that are providing information to individuals. They also have a subscribe service. So for example, if you’re looking for technology and you put it in there, anything that comes up that has that particular terminology, they will be able to answer it for you. So with that, it takes us to this right here, and I will turn it back over to Daryl.

DARYL FOX: Thank you so much, David. And just a reminder, I’ve been putting items in the chat as we’ve been moving along, the recording and PowerPoint for today will be posted to BJA’s website. So everybody that’s registered today will receive an email when and where to access that, so keep an eye for that and you’ll be able to reference back to this as you go through your application process. We do have some time today, before we conclude, so if you have any questions, go ahead and enter those in the Q&A box, and our panellists will get those queued up, and our panelists will be able to address those as they come in. There’s nothing in the Q&A at this moment, but like I said, we still have quite a bit of time left today and we’ll hang on for a while here.

DAVID P. LEWIS: While people are thinking up their questions, let me just take this opportunity to thank you for getting on the webinar, for your interest in our Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. And like I said, we’re here to help you. We think that this is your program, we’re just, kind of, like, facilitating it, and really helping to keep communities safe. So if no questions come up, again, thank you on behalf of Director Karhlton Moore, myself as the policy person for the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, and hopefully you have a safe 4th of July and holidays. And please, like I said, if you should have any questions, maybe it might be—I’ll open, kind of, my door—if you have questions about any funding source that you see at BJA, feel free to send me an email.

DARYL FOX: And also, if we do conclude, when we do conclude, if something comes to mind, feel free, as mentioned, to contact the OJP Response Center at the information listed here, [email protected], the main email address there, or 1-800-851-3420. Very responsive, informative to every query that they receive, and they work directly with BJA on those answers to those questions, so … and I’ll leave this up just for a moment before we conclude.

David, nothing in the queue, so quite comprehensive, and I think you did address most items in regards to this opportunity, so … Okay. So with that, we can go ahead and conclude. On behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and our panelists, I want to thank you for joining today’s webinar. This will end today’s presentation.