October 23, 2013 — A spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed Tuesday that the federal government’s fortnight-plus of relative paralysis will delay the disbursement of Saltonstall-Kennedy grant monies until late January or early February.
The original NOAA timetable for awarding the funds, estimated at between $5 million and $10 million, set Sept. 29 as the deadline for proposals, followed by the review process that was expected to have money flowing into communities by the end of December.
Unfortunately for the 261 Saltonstall-Kennedy applicants nationwide — including 124 from the Northeast and a half-dozen from Gloucester — the deadline came two days before the federal government virtually ground to a halt.
“NOAA was unable to begin the review process immediately because of the shutdown,” agency spokeswoman Monica Allen said Tuesday. “So this will slow the process. Now our plan and our hope is to notify grant recipients by late January or early February.”
In a followup email to the Times, Allen said NOAA’s fiscal 2013 budget included about $11 million for the national Saltonstall-Kennedy grant program. The legislative act that created that program requires “60 percent of these funds be distributed in the form of external grants and we fully intend to exceed that,” Allen wrote.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times