NOTICES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Pennsylvania Wine Marketing and Research Board; Grant Solicitation and Application Procedures for Agricultural Commodities Marketing Act Funding
[52 Pa.B. 6457]
[Saturday, October 15, 2022]1. Introduction. The Pennsylvania Wine Marketing and Research Program Board (Board) annually, or more fre-quently as the availability of fund permits, solicits applications for grants to conduct promotion, marketing and research projects to increase the quality, profitability, production and sale of wines, enhance the wine industry and benefit wine producers of this Commonwealth. The Board was established by the Department of Agriculture (Department) under 3 Pa.C.S. §§ 4501—4513 (relating to Agricultural Commodities Marketing Act) (ACMA). Its composition, funding and duties were subsequently expanded by section 488.1 of the Liquor Code (47 P.S. § 4-488.1). The Board makes recommendations for the awarding of grants by the Liquor Control Board from funds provided through the Liquor Code (47 P.S. §§ 1-101—10-1001) for Liquor Control Board Act 39 of 2016 funding. This notice establishes the procedures by which grant applications will be solicited, reviewed and grants awarded. The purpose of this solicitation is to procure proposals to complete an economic impact study regarding the wine industry within this Commonwealth for 2021.
2. Solicitation. The Board will be accepting grant applications for the purposes, in the form and grant according to the schedule set forth herein for not less than 30 days beginning on the date of publication of this notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. Additional publication and dissemination of this notice shall be made and may include direct dissemination to qualified entities that perform this type of work. The maximum award available is $40,000.
3. Process overview. The Board will employ the review process described as follows.
a. The Department will receive proposals and disseminate them to the Board for review. The Board will meet on Tuesday, February 21, 2023, at 10 a.m. and score the proposals to determine to whom they will award the funds. Within 3 days of this decision the Department will communicate the results to all who submitted proposals.
4. Application deadline. Applicants should submit a Project Proposal and Grant Application, in the form set forth in paragraph 5 of this notice, to the Board by 4 p.m. on Friday, December 9, 2022. Proposals should be sent electronically as a PDF file, to RA-AGCommodities@ pa.gov. The file should not exceed 5MB.
5. Format of the project proposal and grant application. Failure to follow this format could result in rejection of the proposal. Applicants may submit up to three one-page letters of support which do not count toward the page limit. The project proposal and grant application cannot exceed ten pages total for project and budget narratives, plus one additional page for the budget table and shall be formatted as follows:
a. A cover page, titled Pennsylvania Wine Marketing and Research Program—Project Proposal and Grant Application, providing: the title of the proposed project; the full legal name and street address of the applicant; the name, address, telephone number and e-mail address of the applicant's principal contact person for matters relating to the application; the name, title, address, telephone number and e-mail address of the individual authorized to contractually bind the applicant to the grant agreement; and the total maximum grant amount sought for the proposed project or program.
b. Addendum, titled Demonstrated Qualifications, should be attached as a maximum three-page addendum which does not count toward the page limit of the proposal.
i. Describe how previous industry market research has been employed by the industries in this Commonwealth or other states;
ii. List any reports or projects presented at meetings in this Commonwealth, other states, or countries.
c. Section 1, titled Project Narrative, explaining or identifying methods for measuring and reporting data; details of the proposed project, including a timeline, statement of expected impact of data, staffing for the project, and objectives and methodologies; and whether, how and to what anticipated extent, the proposed report can be leveraged to impact quality, profitability, production and sale of wines, enhance the wine industry and benefit wine producers of this Commonwealth.
d. Section 2, titled Data Points of Economic Impact Report. At minimum, the report must cover all data points from the 2018 economic impact report and should explore any new recommended areas by the applicant. Applicants can download the 2018 report at https://pennsylvaniawine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/PWA_EconomicImpact-FNL.pdf. The report must capture how this Commonwealth ranks in the industry Nationally.
e. Section 3, titled Evaluation and Reporting, in this section individuals should describe in detail the approach to methodology and include a narrative describing data collection to inform the outcome measures. This section must be clear and unambiguous as it will inform expectations of progress reports and the final report.
f. Section 4, titled Budget, presenting a detailed budget for the proposed project or program, including any other matching funds and the value of any noncash resources that will be included in the project.
For all applications, each and every item of direct expense to be incurred in the project shall be separately set forth, including all purchases of consumable or nonconsumable goods or equipment, listing the disposition of all nonconsumable goods or equipment upon completion of the project; all travel by dates, purpose, destination, mode of transportation and rate; a full breakdown of other costs, if any, and the method used to calculate those costs. See also paragraph 12.
i. Personnel—Includes employed personnel. Those employed elsewhere should be listed as subcontractors or consultants in the contractual cost category. Provide detail of all personnel by name devoted to the project, their professional qualifications, the amount of time calculated by hours and the tasks to be performed by each of the named personnel.
ii. Fringe benefits—Provide the rate of fringe benefits for each project participant's salary. Identify the total for all funded fringe benefits.
iii. Travel—Calculate the costs for travel by considering destinations, number of trips, days traveling, transportation costs, estimated lodging and meal costs and estimated mileage rate.
iv. Supplies—This could be anything from office supplies and software, to education or field supplies.
v. Contractual—If contractual work will be involved with carrying out the work of the project, identify the total contractual expenses. When determining the total cost for this category, include the fees for the professional services, travel costs, lodging expenses, indirect costs as provided in paragraph 12 and any other related contractual expenses.
vi. Other—This category includes fees for conferences or meetings, facility and equipment rental costs, lodging and meal expenses, communication costs, speaker fees, publication costs and data collection.
g. Section 5, titled Budget Narrative, providing details of how individuals arrived at the estimated expenses in the budget and describing how each expense will lead to the success of the project.
h. Section 6, titled Industry Participation, addressing the extent of support, participation and data that will be derived directly from the Commonwealth's wine industry, including wineries, associations, organizations or agencies, or both, with an interest in the project outcome. Any letters or written confirmation of that support, or participation should be included in this section.
6. Scoring of applications. The Board will evaluate each complete and timely-filed project proposal and grant application it receives, which shall include a 100-point scale assessing:
a. Up to 20 points for research methodology including data retrieval.
b. Up to 40 points for previous experience or demonstrated expertise.
c. Up to 20 points for overall project evaluation.
d. Up to 20 points for plan to garner support and participation from the industry.
7. Evaluation and awards. The Board reserves the right to request modifications or clarifications, or both, of project proposals and grant applications, including but not limited to additional details of purpose, reduced or modified budgets, and the like. Upon completion of evaluations, the Board will prepare a record identifying each complete and timely-filed project proposal and grant application received and the numerical score assigned to each.
8. Term of grants. Grant Agreements will become effective on the date of the last required signature affixed to the contract. The contract shall have a term of no longer than 12 months, except in cases where a nocost extension is requested and agreed to in accordance with paragraph 11.
9. Progress report. Progress reports are to include the deliverables from paragraph 5.d. A progress report must be delivered by e-mail to RA-AGCommodities@pa.gov no later than six months from the execution of the contract. The Board may request subsequent progress reports prior to the conclusion of the project. Final reports should be submitted within 60 days of contract end date. Failure to meet these deadlines constitutes a breach of the grant agreement, will result in non-payment of invoices, and could jeopardize future grant awards.
10. Grant agreement. The Department will provide successful applicants with a grant agreement for Grantee's execution to be returned to the Department within 30 calendar days. The Department will obtain the required signature on the grant agreements, including any other required Commonwealth entities and return a copy to the Grantee. Unless otherwise stated in the signed grant agreement, no grant agreement is effective, and work should not begin, and work may not be reimbursed, until all required signatures have been applied to the grant agreement. Among the terms of the grant agreement shall be a requirement that the grant recipient provide the Board with full and complete access to all records relating to the performance of the project and to submit information as the Board may require.
11. Nocost extensions and budget adjustments. Requests for contract modifications must be received no later than 60 days prior to the end of the agreement.
12. Cost-reimbursement grant and indirect costs cap. Grants made hereunder do not require the applicant to secure or to devote a matching sum to the project. Payment of grant funds will occur on a reimbursement basis only. Grant awards may include an allowance for indirect costs of up to 10%. In the case of graduate student participation, reasonable stipends will be allowed and tuition will not be allowed.
RUSSELL C. REDDING,
Secretary
[Pa.B. Doc. No. 22-1566. Filed for public inspection October 14, 2022, 9:00 a.m.]
No part of the information on this site may be reproduced for profit or sold for profit.This material has been drawn directly from the official Pennsylvania Bulletin full text database. Due to the limitations of HTML or differences in display capabilities of different browsers, this version may differ slightly from the official printed version.
