FY 2023 NSLP Equipment Assistance Grants for SFAs – Notice of Funding Availability

This Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) announces the distribution of $30 million provided by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (PL 117-328), to state agencies to competitively award Equipment Assistance Grants to eligible school food authorities (SFAs) participating in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The Equipment Assistance Grants will be especially effective in supporting SFAs by enabling them to meet equipment needs, which have continued to experience supply chain disruptions in operating school food service. This availability notice and attachment provide guidance on the grant awards, funding, funding goals, period of performance, award/award timelines, administration, and reporting for these grants.

Funding

For the funding available in FY 2023, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) used the State Administrative Expense allocation formula to fully issue the available $30 million to state agencies. Please refer to the state agency funding allocation attachment.

A state agency may not use more than five percent of its allocation for administrative costs associated with awarding grants to eligible SFAs.

Subgrantee Eligibility and Approach

This NOFA provides grant funding to state agencies and directs them to competitively award subgrants to local educational agencies and schools to purchase equipment, with a value of greater than $1,000, needed to serve healthier meals, improve food safety, and to help support the establishment, maintenance, or expansion of the School Breakfast Program.

State agencies may consider any SFA eligible to receive a grant award.

Selection criteria factors that state agencies should consider when awarding the subgrants to SFAs, may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Age of food service equipment or lack of appropriate items;
• Ability of food service equipment to increase the efficiency of SFA procurement, food storage, and distribution/service;
• The availability of existing state and local funding for equipment purchases;
• Strategies for adopting lunchroom changes that provide more convenience and appeal to the student; and,
• Opportunities to realize meaningful impacts on nutrition and quality of meals.

State agencies must develop and submit a copy of the Request for Application (RFA) to competitively award the subgrants, to their respective FNS regional program office for prior approval. The RFA must include all applicable terms and conditions both at the federal and state level (government-wide and USDA requirements).

The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number for this grant project award is: 10.579.

Funding Goals

As with all federal grant funds, procurement regulations at 7 CFR Part 210.21 and 2 CFR Part 200.317-326 apply, and equipment competitively procured using these grant funds must be necessary, reasonable, and allocable. State agencies’ NSLP Equipment Assistance Grant announcements to SFAs must highlight the requirement to follow all federal, state, and local procurement laws when purchasing equipment with these grant awards.

Period of Performance

The effective dates of these grants will vary; however, the performance period end date for these grants will be Sept. 30, 2025.

How to Apply

To apply for these funds, state agencies must submit an Application for Federal Assistance through the SF-424 Application Package to their respective FNS regional office. GMAS point-of-contact (POC) with cc: to regional office program staff listed below. Applications must be received no later than 11:59 PM Eastern Time by Aug. 16, 2023; late applications will not be considered. State agencies may reach out to their respective FNS regional office GMAS POC with questions or technical assistance requests when preparing their application package. The regional office GMAS will coordinate with the child nutrition (CN) program POC, as applicable.

All Standard Forms (SF) listed below can be found on Grants.gov here (where they must be opened in Adobe and saved as PDF) or as an attachment to this announcement. Please ensure all Standard Forms (SF-424, SF-424A, SF-424B, SF-LLL) have wet signatures (i.e., print, sign, and scan/email with application).

Award/Award Timeline

When awards are made, state agencies will receive a new FNS-529, Grant Award Agreement, from their respective regional office, with accompanying terms and conditions, which will serve as the official grant agreement. Grant funds will not be released to any state agency until the FNS-529 is returned with signature and can be fully executed, i.e., to include both the state agency and FNS signatures.

Once an award has been made and the state agencies RFA for subgrants has been approved by the FNS regional office, the state agency will distribute subgrant materials, review application submissions from SFAs, award subgrants, and conduct monitoring. State agencies are expected to maintain all appropriate purchase records and make them available and ready for review upon request. The states’ initial award phase should be completed by Sept. 30, 2024, including states’ solicitation and obligation of funds to their respective subgrantees.

SFAs that are unable to fully obligate their grant amounts, must return any unobligated funds to the state agency by no later than Jan. 15, 2025. If these funds are returned to the state agency, the state agency may reallocate available funds (the returned funds and the funds not previously obligated to SFAs) to award the next applicant approved for an equipment grant that had not received funds during the initial competitive grant application process.

Funds returned to the state agency after Sept. 30, 2025, must be returned to FNS. State agencies must follow all standard policies and procedures to award these grants to the SFAs.

Award Reporting Requirements

State agencies will be required to provide only a final FNS-908 Performance Progress Report at the end of the period of performance, but quarterly SF-425 Financial Status Reports are required.

The recipient is required to electronically enter the quarterly and final financial status report (SF-425) into the FNS, Food Programs Reporting System (FPRS). The title for this report is: “CN-NSLPE-v5”.

This report must be entered within 30 days after the close of each quarter. The final Financial Report must be entered into FPRS within 120 days of the expiration of the grant agreement. This report must also be certified by the recipient’s chief fiscal officer or an officer of comparable rank. State agency staff that do not already have access to the “CN-NSLPE-v5” program in FPRS, will need to submit an FNS-674 to their regional office POC. The FNS-674 can be found on the FPRS Welcome page.

A final FNS-908 Performance Progress Report will be submitted via email to the FNS regional office program POC in PDF form (not Word or Excel). On this form, state agencies shall provide a final reporting summary that will include a list of all grantees and equipment purchased (this can be included in the narrative or as an attachment).

Questions regarding this announcement should be directed to the appropriate regional office. Regional office questions should be directed to the Child Nutrition Program Monitoring and Operational Support Division via email to SM.FN.PMOS-OSB@usda.gov.

Attachment

• FY 2023 State Funding Allocations