FY24 Rural and Small Department Violent Crime Reduction Program

ANNA GOEDERT: Good morning and good afternoon. I'm Anna Goedert of Justice and Security Strategies, and I would like to welcome you to the BJA 2024 Rural and Small Violent Crime Reduction Grant Solicitation Webinar. Before we begin, I would like to explain a few items. All participants will be muted for this presentation. You can connect to your audio either through your computer or device or by the call-in number. If you have technical questions, please address them in the Q&A box. During the webinar, please use the chat to ask questions. We will try to answer as many questions as possible. An evaluation survey will be available immediately after this session and tomorrow. Please send those in. We really would like your feedback. A recording of today's webinar, caption transcript, and PowerPoint presentation will be available on our website after this presentation. We will begin the presentation at 12:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, 2:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time, and 3:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Thank you. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: All right, I'm gonna get started. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining our webinar today. It's for the FY 2024 Rural and Small Department Violent Crime Reduction Program. We're extremely happy that you're joining us today and that there's so much interest in this solicitation. I am Dr. Craig Uchida, and I will be your host for today's webinar. We have a full slate of presenters today. Juliana Palmer is the Policy Advisor for this program with Bureau of Justice Assistance. Erin Rose Feeley is the State Policy Advisor for BJA, and she'll be talking about the financial end of things. As I mentioned, I'm Craig Uchida, and we'll come back to me, and we'll do more introductions later. I'm joined by Dr. Shellie Solomon, who is the CEO for Justice and Security Strategies. And we have two guests today. Mr. Jim Hackett, who's the Director of Emergency Management for the Crawford County Sheriff's Department in Wisconsin. And also Chief Steven Lowell of the Oneida, New York, Police Department, and they will be talking to us about how they've worked within this grant program and give you some ideas about how it will go over the next few years for you if you're successful. Next slide, please. So what we'll do is we're gonna do an overview of OJP and BJA, and Juliana will be doing that. She'll also be engaged a bit with the program overview, and I will also be involved in that and talk about what it takes to write a grant proposal for this solicitation. We'll then hear from our guest speakers regarding their experiences, and Dr. Solomon will be a facilitator for that discussion. Then Juliana will return and talk about eligibility, application requirements, and then she'll be joined by Erin who will talk about the resources and the manner in which you'll need to apply. We're hoping that we can leave plenty of time for Q&A. So as you listen to us and have questions, please put those in the chat, and we can answer them at the end and get back to you with that. Next slide, please. OK, so... Next slide, Welcome and Introductions. And I'm gonna turn this over to Juliana Palmer, who can talk about OJP and BJA. Go ahead, Juliana. 

JULIANA PALMER: Thanks, Craig, and good afternoon, everyone. I see the numbers are slowly ticking up, but over 240 people joining us today, which is amazing. My name is Juliana Palmer. I'm a Policy Advisor at the Bureau of Justice Assistance on our Law Enforcement Innovation and Crime Reduction team. I wanted to take a few minutes to give you some information about who we are, if you're not familiar. The Office of Justice Programs, or OJP, serves as one of three grant-making components at the Department of Justice. The two other being the Office on Violence Against Women and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, also known as the COPS office. BJA was created within the Office of Justice Programs, which include the Bureau of Justice Statistics, whose mission is to collect, analyze, publish and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems. The National Institute of Justice which serves as the research, development, and evaluation agency of the Department of Justice. The Office of Juvenile Justice an Delinquency Prevention, which works to prevent and respond to youth delinquency and to protect children. The Office for Victims of Crime, which works to enhance the nation's capacity to assist crime victims. And the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. And then there's, of course, Bureau of Justice Assistance. Next slide. Here at BJA, our mission really is to strengthen the nation's criminal justice system and help state, local, and tribal jurisdictions reduce and prevent crime, reduce recidivism, and promote a fair and safe criminal justice system. We're led by director Karhlton Moore, and you can learn more about BJA by visiting bja.ojp.gov and access all of our other funding opportunities as well. Next slide. So BJA focuses programmatic and policy efforts on providing a wide range of resources, including training and technical assistance in grant funding. We provide a wide variety of support to: fund so investing in diverse funding streams to accomplish goals; educate through research, development and delivery of what works; equip, creating tools and products to build capacity and improve outcome; and partner, consulting, correcting, and convening. Next slide. So now we're just going to do a brief poll. The question is, has your organization been awarded federal grants in the past? This is really helpful to know because this solicitation in particular tends to draw agencies that might not have pursued federal funding in the past. And so this solicitation webinar is really aimed to support you in navigating the federal grants process and providing insight to what BJA is looking for in your grant application. We'll give it another moment for folks to respond. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: All right. 

JULIANA PALMER: All right. So it looks like about 33%... 58 of our participants does have extensive experience, which is awesome. Another 44% has limited experience, and 13%, about 23, is pretty new to federal grants and looking to learn more. So, we're glad you're here. Again, this solicitation webinar is really intended to provide you with insight of what we're looking for to support this program. Next slide. So we're gonna go into the Program Overview. We're all here today to really hear more about BJA's Rural and Small Department Violent Crime Reduction Program, which is a program through which BJA is able to provide support and funding through rural and small jurisdictions to combat a variety of violent crime challenges. Specifically this program leverages some BJA resources, such as the Violent Crime Reductions Operations Guide and the Prosecutors' Guide to Reducing Violence and Building Safer Communities to enable agencies to strategically identify violent crime challenges and then put together some solutions seeking to address those challenges. At this time, I will hand it over to Craig to review some of the program activities for this program that's also outlined in the solicitation. Craig? 

CRAIG UCHIDA: Great. Thank you, Juliana. Thank you for that overview and context as well. As we dive into the activities of the solicitation and the actual grant, let me just explain a little bit about what we do as the training and technical assistance advisor and provider. So what we try to do, once you get your grant, we try to provide guidance and training, give you advice about what you might want to do with your strategy, and also we help to set up peer-to-peer connections. Our primary goal is to help you implement a successful program. And that means that you can demonstrate a reduction in the level of your targeted violent crime issue. So that's kind of what we'd like to see happen, and as we move forward, we can help you do that. Let me just introduce ourselves real quickly. To mix things up, I'm gonna let Dr. Solomon introduce me, and then I will introduce her. Go ahead. Go ahead, Shellie. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: So Dr. Uchida is an experienced field researcher, Very experienced. He just looks young, but he's worked at over 75 departments across the country on issues ranging from drug markets to violent crime reduction to gun violence, school-based violence, domestic violence, technology integration. He's done a lot. And he's been embedded in LAPD for the past ten years, working on violence projects a lot and leads the national BWC TTA program for body-worn cameras. In his prior life, he helped start the COPS office, and he was the research director at the National Institute of Justice. So he does have a lot of experience with grants.

CRAIG UCHIDA: Great. Thanks, Shellie. And Dr. Solomon is the CEO of Justice and Security Strategies. But more importantlywell, very importantly she runs the day-to-day operations of our consulting firm. She's also the director, project director for the Small, Rural, and Tribal Body-Worn Camera TTA Program and hails from a small town in Texas. And so a lot of her background, both personally and professionally, has been helping small, rural, and tribal agencies during her lifetime. And she also worked at the COPS office back in the day. She oversaw the grants for small agencies and understands the difficulties of grants administration for small, rural, and tribal and is extremely knowledgeable about working through the system and helping people out in that way. She holds a doctorate from the United Nations University, which means that she went to Maastricht in the Netherlands, on innovation and technology. We also have a number of experts at JSS that are able to help you too. And Mike Green is here with us. He's the former Director of the DCJS, the Department of Criminal Justices Services in the state of New York, also a former prosecutor. And we also have with us Esther Farmer. She's a former assistant chief with the Miami Police Department. And we have a slew of others as well. So I know we can be helpful to you down the road. One of the things I want to mention here within the activities and things that you should be aware of is that the Violent Crime Reduction Operations Guide is really, really important. It's vital that you take a look at that Guide as you're writing this proposal. It's not only the basis for this program, but there will be, later, an assessment tool that you fill out if you do get a grant award. Within the Guide, I think you'll see that problem-oriented policing, or problem solving, is the basis for the work that we'd like to see get done. And problem solving is a great kind of strategy for you to use. It allows you to identify a specific problem. It allows you to analyze that problem, respond to it, and assess it. And what you'll see in the Guide is a description of that, and I think most of you, I hope, are familiar with problem solving and the SARA process and will be able to follow that along. You'll also see in the solicitation that there's a request for a partnership with a researcher or a subject matter expert to help you monitor and identify elements within your project. You don't have to identify anyone in particular for this solicitation now or in your proposal now, but the expectation is that you will seek one and find one that will be able to help you along those lines. Next slide, please. So the other thing I want to mention here too is that and I can't overstate the importance of the VCROG because you are going to follow a path of deploying resources, of requesting funding for different kinds of things within your proposal. You'll also need to document how you develop and implement those strategies. And I think in that way, it's very important to understand what those elements are gonna be and what you do need to track. BJA is very interested in the outcomes here, and the outcome, the long-term outcome, frankly, is to reduce violence and to address the problem that you are going to describe in your proposal. Before we go to the next slide, one of the things I just want to mention too is that there are some core things that you'll need to identify and be very specific about. And those are also outlined in the solicitation, and you should look closely at that. Go to the next slide, I think. Yeah. So, and this is what the VCROG looks like. It does have a lot of details in it, and the next slide also will show you what the Critical Elements are. Go to the next slide, please. There you go. One of the things I want to lay out to you here too are a number of tips that I know I've used for writing proposals. And tip number one is, read the VCROG. I can't overstate that. Tip number two is use problem-oriented policing as your guide. Use that as your strategy because then everything else starts to lay out. Within this guideline, you see community engagement, partnerships, technology, et cetera, here. You need to pick out at least two critical elements to put in your proposal. This is tip number three. Include at least two critical elements in your proposal. And that could be community engagement and partnerships. It could be analytics and intelligence. It could be all of these. But you need to have at least two of them. Tip number four is take a look at the case studies that are in this Guide. You'll see those on pages 31 and 35. It'll help you see what's been done in the past. It will give you some ideas about how you identify the problem, what else you need to do with the problem, how to respond, et cetera. And tip number five, and these are grant proposal basics, OK? Pay close attention to what's in the solicitation about what needs to be put into your program narrative and in your proposal broadly. So part of this is that, you know, you're gonna have to write ten double-space pages. You're gonna have to include in your narrative a description of the problem that you want to identify. You're also going to have to develop a project design, and that's where the VCROG comes into play. The identification of the problem is worth 15% of your score. The project design is worth 30% of your score, and the rest of this, capabilities and confidences, that's 20%. You'll also need to incorporate performance measures, which is 15%. And the budget is 20% of the score. The other thing that I just want to mention in the budget area is that this year the budget for equipment has been capped at 30% of the entire award. So the maximum award amount that you'll get is $300,000. So the most you can pay for equipment is 90,000. So keep that in mind as well. The last couple of things I'll just mention here are that...take a look at the checklist, because that's gonna help you. That's on pages 23 and 25 of the solicitation. The checklist helps you go through the paperwork, and you need to make sure that the paperwork is all in order and that it's all uploaded into JustGrants, and Erin will talk a bit about JustGrants later on in this webinar. OK, now I'm gonna turn it over to Dr. Solomon, who will basically facilitate a conversation, ask our guest speakers about their experiences, and just go from there. So take it from there, Shellie. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: Thank you. So I'm gonna start with you, Director Hackett. Can you give me a couple of... Talk to me a little bit about what motivated you to apply for the grant and how you went about writing it. Did you have a grant writer? What was your vision for the ten pages? 

JIM HACKETT: Sure. We were seeing a increase in violent crime in Crawford County when we looked at our five-year data. And I was our grant writer. It was in-house, and it motivated us to use that Operations Guide and come up with some new solutions to how we could think outside the box and use the SARA model and hot spot policing on top of some other initiatives described in there, and came up with a plan. The grant-writing process was really smooth. It was about a day and a half, total. Really and truly, the real grant writing was a day, and that other half was just making sure that everything was spell-checked, and the sheriff was on board with everything that was going on in the grant and all the administration approval. But, yeah, it was a pretty streamlined process, and that Operations Guide helped out a lot. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: Well, it's nice to meet somebody who can write quickly in that way. One page. So let me ask you, Chief Lowell, to please hear your motivation and your experience with putting the grant together. 

STEVEN LOWELL: Sure. So the city of Oneida is about 22 square miles. We have a population of around 11,000 residents. And traditionally we've had areas within our city that are historically crime-ridden type areas. It doesn't matter how many proactive deployments we would put out, a zero-tolerance effort, the crime or calls for service seemed to keep occurring, especially during COVID in 2020. We were first funded under RVCRI in 2021, fiscal year '21, due to our crime stats, our escalations in assaults and burglaries, weapons possession, and homicide. So using and seeing that influx in crime, we saw the solicitation come out. I wrote the grant in-house. It took me a little bit longer than a day. Kudos to Director Hackett. That's excellent. And, yeah, so we structured around using data from the Crime Analysis Center. So New York State has regional Crime Analysis Centers who are an excellent partner with us, that really help us and do a lot of mapping for us using crime stats. So we had set the benchmark and looking at a historical five-year crime pattern based on offense data and mapped it out in hot spots. We framed the grant around hot spot patrols. So we funded overtime for deployment. And then also what we did in working with our training and technical assistance provider once we were funded is started rolling out CPTED, or crime prevention through environmental design concepts, where we had officers trained in CPTED, so they were aware of what the concepts behind that were, and they would bring back feedback, which was compiled in-house by our criminal investigation division sergeant to make enhancements, and we started to pull the strings and levers with city codes, parks and rec, DPW to make environmental changes to affect crime patterns within our city. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: Well, thank you for sharing that. You kind of talked a little bit about how you set your team up. So I'm gonna as Director Hackett to share how he set up his team once you won the federal grant. 

JIM HACKETT: Yeah, once we won the federal grant, we hired a position, and so we had to make sure that that individual was on board, involved in all the meetings so they understood the hot spots and the initiatives. On top of that, the Sheriff, and then we were able to use the data that we were already collecting through NIBRS and WIBRS, which in Wisconsin is the Wisconsin Incident-Based Reporting, which correlated exactly with a lot of our violent crime. So a lot of that work was already done for us. And then with our payroll department, which is one individual that does the payroll to make sure everything is covered of what we're paying the individual, all fringe benefits, everything like that. So a relatively small team, but constant work from the team working towards the grant. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: Wonderful. Thank you for letting us know. So tell us a little bit about implementing your grant and the impacts on violent crime in your community. 

JIM HACKETT: Sure. This is actually a really big success story. We were able to implement our grant, and our hypothesis was we would see on the hot spots it would go really, really bright because we're enforcing in those areas, and then they would dim out. But what our fear was is we'd see displacement. We'd see those hot spots move to different areas of the county or our surrounding counties. And with our partnerships through there, we haven't seen that. We've actually seen a reduction when we're looking at our stats in violent crime. So the displacement is not happening, and we're actually making a positive effect on violent crime in Crawford County, Wisconsin. I think a lot that has to do too is we assumed there was a correlation with people in crisis along with violent crime. So not only were we just addressing the issue of violent crime, our officers were also now trained in crisis intervention. So we're dealing with the individual in crisis as well. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: Wow. So you went in a little bit new direction there. So, Chief Lowell, what was your experience and your impact? 

STEVEN LOWELL: So we've seen a reduction so far in criminal offenses, and we were also concerned with diffusion or displacement of crime, so keeping an eye on those areas outside of our hot spots was definitely a concern of ours. We... sounds like pretty much the same along the same lines. The implementation of the grant brought us down paths, looking at substance use disorders, and partnering with our local resources for mental health and substance abuse. So fiscal year '23 funding is being geared more towards a co-responder type model where we're leveraging those preemptive stats and setting people up with resources prior to the crimes. The other thing that we were monitoring are indicators of crime. So maybe crime stats tell you one thing, but the indicators of crime, so the CPTED environmental features and bringing that feedback, and then really engaging the citizens, where we put out a survey as part of our grant detail to just talk to citizens and residents in the area, businesses. What do they see at different times of the day? To look at what crime stats don't tell us. What are the indicators that are going on that allow crime to happen within those certain areas? And that was huge. So we really fortified our partnerships with the community, our stakeholders within the community, our other service providers, and implementing the RVCRI money, the grant project, has opened up doors with our training and technical assistance provider. It's allowed us to really have a lot of different paths that we're going down for the betterment of our area. It's been fantastic. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: Thank you. Thank you. And, Director Hackett, do you want to talk a little bit about how you worked with the TTA provider on your project? 

JIM HACKETT: Yeah, our TTA provider, all our TTA providers we've ever had on this grant, because we've had two successful grant applications, have been amazing and have opened up more doors than most of my partnerships do. The fact that we were able to get extra training, the fact that we were able to have the outreach from the providers that we normally wouldn't have. So if we would hit a snag, it was, "Oops, let me find you something else that will work," and within a very short amount of time. I didn't have to do the digging, and you guys did the dirty work for me. And it was really just like having an extra team on the grant. It's amazing, and the partnerships I can't speak enough for. They make the grant more successful. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: Thank you. Thank you both for sharing your experience with our perspective grantees. Your words of wisdom will surely help them as they move forward. And I'm gonna turn it back over to Juliana... to talk about eligibility. 

JULIANA PALMER: Thank you, Shellie. And I have been trying to respond to the questions as they come in. So I appreciate everyone's patience as we're working through this. So when it comes to eligibility for this program, this is all outlined in the solicitation. It is limited to small and/or rural law enforcement agencies and prosecutors serving rural communities or small departments. We do have on the screen here how we, for the purposes of this program, define the various eligible agencies. So a small agency is any law enforcement agency with 250 or fewer sworn officers. There was a question in the chat earlier for sheriff's office. Would that include corrections officers? My guidance for that is the full number of sworn officers within an agency, so it would include that. A rural agency, there's two parts to this, is either an agency serving any area or community, no part of which is within an area designated as a standard metropolitan statistical area by the Office of Management and Budget, or any agency serving one or more rural census tracts. And then a tribal agency, of course, is any federally recognized tribe with a designated law enforcement agency. There is going to be Erin will be putting some contact information into the chat. As you're going through this process, if you have specific questions, for example, around eligibility, I really encourage you to reach out to our OJP response center. Erin can provide you that email address, and what happens is that questions get routed to myself and to Erin for us to respond to and provide you guidance. Next slide. All right, so, available funding. We've got a lot of questions about this in the chat so far, so for purposes of this year's solicitations, the ceiling for an individual award is $300,000. We anticipate 15 awards. This is all really based on funding availability. This funding would begin on October 1, 2024, for a performance period of 36 months. A couple of notes here. As Craig has mentioned, there is that cap on technology or equipment purchases. And really what we're looking to see and fund in the field is larger comprehensive plans to address these violent crime strategies. So we recognize and fully understand that technology and equipment is a very important component in violent crime reduction. However it's not the sole key. So we really want to see plans that may leverage technology or equipment but also have other efforts and initiatives underway to compliment those efforts. So that's a really important component as you're going through your application process. And then for the performance period, one key consideration is if you do have 36-month timeline or plan just really making sure that that is reflected in your budget. So, for example, is you have personnel assigned to this project, or your projects, you would want to make sure you have funding for that individual throughout the 36 months reflected in your budget. Next slide. All right. So we heard from Jim, and we heard from Chief Lowell and certainly appreciate their time today. So you got to hear some of what they've been working on, but I did just want to pull this together and share some of the work that's been done under this program previously. So agencies participating in this program have utilized funding to combat violent crime challenges ranging from homicides and assaults to narcotics- and gun-related crime to intimate partner violence and child abuse and exploitation. So it's a really wide range of activities that we have funded through this program and a lot of different approaches that are being done and implemented throughout the country and across our sites. Next slide. A couple of things to keep in mind. As Craig has mentioned, really leveraging these BJA resources throughout your application as stated in the solicitation, pulling from those key elements and connecting them to the activities that you're looking to implement. And then, of course, your timeline. We really recommend that you highlight and include major milestones or deliverables that you're looking to accomplish throughout your project. And some very, very important dates. So this solicitation was posted on March 19, 2024. We are here on April 11. We have just over a month left until the Grants.gov deadline, which is on May 15, 2024. And the application for JustGrants deadline is May 22, 2024. Both are at 8:59 p.m. Eastern. These are dual deadlines, and Erin's going to talk a little bit more about that and some things to keep in mind as you're going through your application. But certainly make sure that you have these dates written down and initiate your applications sooner than later if this is as an opportunity you're looking to apply to. With that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague Erin. 

ERIN ROSE FEELEY: Thanks, Juliana. I'll try to go through this section real quick so we can get to some of these great questions and some more answers. All right, so there's been quite a few questions here about allowable and unallowable costs. So I did post the grants Financial Guide. That is a great place to start. And there are gonna be some additional documents and things that you'll want to review on the applications resource page, and there'll be some additional information here. I believe you'll want to try to find those sections around prohibited and controlled equipment. Just because it's not explicitly stated in the Financial Guide doesn't mean that there isn't gonna be some additional prohibitions around some types of equipment. So please go through that carefully. There is also a lot of other great information on this page that will help you with your application or specific questions about the actual application process. So I am gonna post in the chat now for everyone a link to the page that we're looking at. And also, too, a little helpful infographic that kind of shows the process through the various systems that you'll be using to submit an application. All right, so, coming up, there are going to be some additional webinars that are gonna go a lot more into detail on the mechanics of submitting an application as well as for the different systems that you'll be using. There are more than one. So as Juliana noted, please do pay attention to those deadlines. And again we will definitely make sure you get all this information, but I'm gonna post in the chat a link to a place where you can register for some upcoming webinars that will kind of go through the technical side of the different websites you need to use. All right, just because we can't reiterate this enough, there are two deadlines. There's the Grants.gov deadline. And please note that is 8:59 p.m. Eastern, and that is gonna be the same thing for JustGrants. Please do make notes of these particular deadlines. And also give yourself enough time to be able to log in, to be able to set up your credentials, and also to ensure that after you fill out the two forms that are listed here, the SF-424 and the SF-LLL. Those Ls stand for lobbying. That information will probably take about 24-48 hours to move from the Grants.gov system into your application within JustGrants. So make sure you're not trying to do this all back to back. Give yourself at least a day or so between websites. Again, just to kind of reiterate some of that, and also one of our help desks here on the right-hand side, and I just put the link in the chat previously for JustGrants. Please note again that there are two different systems, meaning that there are two different help desks. You will be getting all of this information within a copy of these slides. So no need to frantically write all this down. We will definitely get it to you. Just really want to point out that there are different help desks that you'll need to deal with. So, many of you are interested in applying for this award. Hopefully you're interested in learning about other award programs that the Office of Justice Programs that are out there. So please do take some time to sign up and to get that information sent to you directly. You can stay connected with us on social media. We can go to the next slide. I do want to highlight the OJP Response Center. Again, that's some information that's in the chat. If you feel that we have not answered any of your questions fully today or you come away with additional questions after this webinar, please do contact the Response Center. As Juliana mentioned, all of the questions will be funneled through them to us. And sometimes we may need some additional information from you. So please do reach out to the Response Center. All right. Again, just kind of a reminder. Two different websites here. Grants.gov and JustGrants. Again with the contact information. And I think we can maybe move on to some questions. We've got a lot of good ones. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: Yeah, we do. Thank you, all of our presenters today. There are a large number of questions. I particularly like this last one. "Could you also send the log of this chat with the answers?" And what we're gonna do is put together all of these questions into a document that will be something like "Frequently asked questions." We will post that on our website and on the BJA website. And, Delaney, if you could insert in the chat our website, justicestrategies.com website. We'll also send out to you all an email where you can find all of this information specific to this webinar for the slides, for the recording, for the FAQs, and we'll have that available to you as soon as we can. So, yes, there are a large number, and I'm very glad that Juliana has answered these questions as she goes, which is great. I think I'm pretty sure she's answered most of them. There are some open ones that Juliana, do you want to jump in and answer some of these? 

JULIANA PALMER: Sure. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: Go ahead. 

JULIANA PALMER: There's so many great questions. I love how engaged everyone has been. And, again, thank you for all of the great questions and your patience as we're working on answering them. I do see one here. One question. "Are sexual assaults and child sex assaults "considered a violent crime? "Should we refer to our state code or does the VCROG define crime?" The VCROG does not define the violent crime. However, we have funded programs that look to address sexual assault and child sexual assault. So that is a type of crime that you could seek to address through your program. And then I did just... I see Jim's comment in here and just to put a plug in for our phenomenal TA providers. You know, as Craig had mentioned, the successful applicants for this program would be connected to BJA's TA providers. And so they are there to help you continue on with your effort. I'm looking over I see one question around Simunition training equipment qualifying for the grant. "The intent is to train police officers using technology when responding to active shooter situations." We have in the past funded VR-type of training and technology. However, again, the biggest caveat of that for this year's solicitation is that technology cap of 30% and really ensuring that the technology complements your broader efforts to reduce violent crime in your jurisdiction. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: I'd also say that And a lot of these questions are very specific about "Can this be funded?" or "Can that be funded?" A lot of it is... it depends. And I say that because it needs to fit within your strategy for crime reduction. So I see a question about crime prevention, for example. And that certainly would apply if it's fitting within your overall strategy, and it's part of how you're gonna address violence. So a lot of you are asking, you know, very, very specific questions that we can only answer based on the context of what you want to spend that money on. And if it is directly applicable to a strategy, then it would make sense that this particular piece of equipment or this particular person or that particular program would fit. So it's hard to say yes or no to a lot of your questions, because it really does depend. And I hate being so wishy-washy on answering you, but it really does fall into that kind of category. So I can't, again, overstate the need to express the strategy and how and in which ways you'd like to reduce crime and how and in which way your response fits into that. So that's kind of how I'd answer a lot of these in that way. I think on BJA's behalf, for instance, I know that district attorney offices have been funded under this program. I'm pretty certain that if the... if you're a campus police department, if you're a public university and have law enforcement authority through your state, then yes, you can apply. But again, it depends on the violent crime problem that's gonna affect you on campus. I'm trying to see some other questions here too. 

JULIANA PALMER: Craig, I've got one. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: Go ahead. 

JULIANA PALMER: This question "For agencies "with much less than 250 officers "for example, my agency has 9 sworn "We would not utilize the full 300,000. "Is there ways of getting reduced amounts for much smaller agencies?" Absolutely. So that's a fantastic question. The ceiling is 300,000. So if you have identified an activity and efforts that you're looking to implement that would cost 150,000, apply for the 150,000. There is no requirement for you to apply for the full amount. It does not impact your application if you don't apply for the full 300,000, I know there are a handful of agencies I've seen grants for $8,000. So, you know, it really just depends on your needs. It just cannot exceed that $300,000 ceiling per award. And in that same general topic area, there's a question. "How many agencies apply for this type "of rural grant annually? "15 grants nationwide are being granted for $300,000. Is that correct?" Yes. We have seen an increase in the number of applicants over the years. I was just talking with our JSS team ahead of this call. You know, back in 2021, I think we had 40 applications, and that number has steadily increased over the years, So we are seeing this program become more competitive. However, I don't want that to discourage you from applying and certainly familiarizing yourself with these programs and processes. So yes, $300,000 for an estimated 15 sites nationwide. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: I see a question here about whether we can support agencies applying for a grant by getting stats. Unfortunately, we cannot help you in that manner. We don't have the resources to help all of the applicants at this particular time. And so we can't help you. I'm sorry. I do see another question... about a match. There is no match for this particular program. So you need not worry about that. Um, let's see, what else? 

STEVE LOWELL: Can I respond to the 

CRAIG UCHIDA: Sure, go ahead, please. 

STEVE LOWELL: Caleb, if you're interested in this funding, be aware of when you're structuring your program that you can also include... or at least in the past opportunities you could include fringe benefits. So if your municipality pays FICA or Medicare, Medicaid tax, Social Security tax for officers working an overtime detail, that that can be included in your budget as well. So as you think... it's not just salary but fringe benefits, so for retirement costs or any state costs that your municipality normally pays, those can be included. Just as one... one thing to consider as you're structuring your application if you're a first-time grantee. I know it's a littleIt can be overwhelming, seemingly overwhelming... just as a word of... thought, food for thought. And then, Brian, we did something similar to what you're talking about, Brian Johnson, where we tied it to criminal possession of weapons using IBR data, Uniform Crime Report data, and were finding that there's drug activity associated with that. But it's all about what you intend to do and what your benchmarks are, but it's all based on data. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: OK.

JULIANA PALMER: I've got one. "Just for clarification, "if we wanted to build in a position "specific to the grant, for example, a domestic violence detective, would that be acceptable?" Yes. We have funded positions exactly like that, domestic violence investigators, previously, currently. So that would absolutely be allowable. And then I know there's a question around... "Is this grant structured as a reimbursement grant? "Will we spend money up front and then receive reimbursements?" Erin is looking to share some information on that with everyone in the chat. Essentially yes. That would be the way that the program would operate. Erin, if there's anything you'd like to add to that. 

ERIN ROSE FEELEY: Yes, I'm gonna put a quick link to the Grants Financial Guide in there. So you're basicallythe funds should be requested kind of as they're needed. Drawdowns can be done ahead of time, but they should be, you know, ready for disbursement withinI think it's around 10 days. That's what I'm trying to find the tip on. OK. Yep. Give me one second, and I will post that in the chat for everyone. And just one thing. The payments do come pretty quickly. There is a separate system. ASAP is the acronym, and it's an electronic funds transfer. So once that system is set up, it's not like you're waiting for a check in the mail that's gonna take three weeks. It's usually within about 24 hours of making the request for a drawdown. 

JULIANA PALMER: Thank you for that, Erin. 

SHELLIE SOLOMON: I'll just take one. "Is it OK to have an SME and an academic evaluator?" My experience'all can correct me but it has been OK in the past to have different staff positions. So... and different consultant positions. 

JULIANA PALMER: I also see one. "Can you utilize the grant for drug reduction, "which leads to violent criminal activity? "We have heavy drug traffic, which leads to guns and criminal warrants, arrests." Yes. Absolutely. Again, that's one of the... popular topic areas that we work on is drug reduction, which is also connected to violent crime in jurisdictions. I know there's a lot of questions remaining, and I'm trying to sort through some that we haven't specifically addressed. Um... A lot of questions around... funding eligibility and what the funding can be used for. Again, I'm really looking at that list that Erin had sent around, prohibiting controlled equipment and keeping in mind that 30% technology cap is going to be very important as you... work through your application. If there any questions, um... Let me see here. "Are technology and equipment considered the same thing for purposes of funding percentage?" I would say yes. They would be considered the same. Certainly depending on what equipment you're looking to fund. And again, the biggest bottom line, I think, for this program is any of those purchases should really serve as part of a larger comprehensive plan. So, again, I know I sound like a broken record, but we certainly understand the need for a lot of this technology or equipment, but we want to see it be embedded into a violent crime reduction strategy. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: OK. OK, we will... we will have these questions and answers available to you probably by Monday or Tuesday. We need to figure out how we can do the closed captioning and those kinds of things for the webinar. But we will post these. We will get answers to you as quickly as we can. We know that you just have a month left to apply for the grant. A lot of the issues you are addressing are in the resources that are available. And I think a lot of these that Erin has put in the chat enable you to answer and find the answers to a lot of your questions about equipment and other needs that you may have and the appropriateness of them within the grants program. One other thing that I would mention to you too is that BJA and OJP offer a large number of grant programs. We are right in the middle of the grant season, and you should also look at those solicitations, because they may be able to answer or help you more directly than this particular program. So keep that in mind too that there are other grant opportunities that you can address and look at. And Juliana has just put that in the chat. So this is not your only shot at getting funding. So definitely keep that in mind. All right? And I think we are coming close to one hour here. What I'd like you also to do if you really It would really be helpful to us. There are evaluation survey questions immediately after this. So please, please answer them. Again, we really value your feedback. It does allow us to improve what we've done and how we do things going forward. And so we would really appreciate answers to those survey questions. Juliana, you want to close this out? And we'll just go from there. 

JULIANA PALMER: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Craig, and Jim, Shellie, Chief Lowell, for all of your support today, Erin as well. And thank you to everyone who came here to learn more about this open solicitation. This is one of the programs that I'm so fortunate to oversee at BJA, and there's so much great work being done, and I look forward to seeing more potential applications to continue supporting small and rural agencies in their violent crime reduction efforts. Take a look at the solicitation. Read it. And there is an email. We've put it in the chat several times. If there's any questions that you did not get answered today, please reach out to that email, and they will route it to myself and Erin, and we will get you a response. Keep those deadlines in mind. And best of luck in your grant writing process. Thank you. 

CRAIG UCHIDA: Thank you all.