Maintenance of Operating Expenditures Requirement

[sgvfccaptain]

I received a questionnaire from FEMA a couple of weeks ago about the Maintenance of Operating Expenditures Requirement. Here is the requirement from FEMA:

The maintenance of operating expenditures (hereafter, maintenance of expenditures) requirement, as stated in 44 CFR 152.4, Roles and responsibilities, as follows “[R]recipients must agree to maintain operating expenditures during the grant period of performance in the areas funded by a grant at a level equal to or greater than the average of their operating expenditures in the two years preceding the year in which the assistance is provided.”

We were asked to give an amount of our spending in the category we received the grant. We got a grant for gear, TIC, hose, and nozzles, so we had to come up with what we had spent the last two years in gear and fire supplies (not a big deal). I guess we can be asked to see if we spent that much this year.

We are looking at 2005 grant about applying for an Engine/Pumper. We just purchased an EMS vehicle this year (Our first NEW unit in our history). My questions: Do this mean we have to spend as much on something other than an Engine/Pumper if we received a grant for that vehicle? Has anyone else seen this questionnaire? Is everyone keeping up with this requirement?

Just wanted to see what everyone else thinks about this. If you want to see the questionnaire, I will post that. This thread is going on too long. Thanks for your help.

Matt

[toddmcbr]

Your EMS vehicle would probably be classified as a capital expenditure and not considered part of annual operating expenditures. Thus I would think you would be alright and that rule would not pertain to this specific situation.

However, I do not work for the Feds..so I can't verify this for you.