In 2011, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a new process for allocation of New York State grants. Rather than releasing Requests for Proposals or announcing grant application periods, 9 of the State’s 13 funding agencies would coordinate their funding cycles to accept grant applications at the same time, via one electronic application process, and applications would be reviewed and awarded simultaneously. Agency control over the funding process would be shared with public-private Regional Economic Development Councils (REDC’s), created by and accountable to the Governor’s office, who would define regional economic priorities and assist in reviewing grant applications. Called the Consolidated Funding Application (CFA) process, this process was ostensibly aimed at reducing the work effort required of applicants to cultivate cross-agency and cross- jurisdictional support for projects, and to unite the funding process behind shared priorities and processes.
The CFA process is designed to facilitate “one-shot” funding efforts. Applicants can apply to the majority of State funding agencies at once, and possibly get their projects moved up the ladder at permitting and regulatory agencies if they are funded. This reduces the significant, cumulative lag time on publicly-funded projects due to sequential efforts to secure funds from different agencies, and subsequently apply for necessary permits or approvals, which are magnified by serial attention from staff members at applying and reviewing parties.
The process was also designed to deliver the benefits of “convening the system”, giving shared responsibility for the creation of project ranking criteria and the design of threshold requirements to State agency grant staff and REDC leaders during a series of mandatory forums. This was intended to reduce the occurrence of interjurisdictional snafus (where projects would be authorized for funding by certain agencies or the REDCs, but be unable to proceed because of regulatory or permit requirements from other agencies) and tie State agency priorities more closely to local economic needs. Agencies and Regional Economic are to review applications for their accordance with regional economic development plans, formulated by REDCs in accordance with guidance from the Governor’s office, in addition to agency priorities. Funded projects that are a part of “Projects of Regional Significance” or other priority status are moved to the top of the permitting and approval list for certain agencies. This allows the State to direct its funding in apparently the most concentrated, bang-for the buck way (projects that do not support regional economic priorities are scored lower, and therefore are less likely to receive funding), and to maintain a procedural focus on the Governors’ priority: economic recovery and expansion.
In conjunction with the development of the new CFA process, Cuomo capitalized on expanded focus on the State budget woes to push though a measure that was previously though to be impossible: he drastically reduced the funding available for discretionary funding by legislators, or ‘member items’, and redirected some of it to the CFA process. This was publicly described as a way to control pork barrel spending: It was aimed at reducing the influence of state legislators in delivering funding to their constituencies without accountability to the governor’s office or State agencies, at disencumbering the passage of day-to-day legislation, and eliminating legislative allocations of funds from State agency budgets for projects which ran counter to their missions or regulations. In a more Machiavellian sense, this also served as an attack on political support for republican legislators who made their names through their abilities to “bring home the bacon” while refusing to work in a bipartisan or inter-branch fashion.
The NYCFA process is still on testing grounds: there have been only two funding rounds so far, and the results of the funded projects i
n terms of procedural perfection and economic returns have yet to be determined. In the end, it could be a model for the federal government and other states to follow in an effort to streamline and unite their own funding processes and priorities, and as a venue to hammer out interagency differences in procedural requirements.
The CFA process is designed to facilitate “one-shot” funding efforts. Applicants can apply to the majority of State funding agencies at once, and possibly get their projects moved up the ladder at permitting and regulatory agencies if they are funded. This reduces the significant, cumulative lag time on publicly-funded projects due to sequential efforts to secure funds from different agencies, and subsequently apply for necessary permits or approvals, which are magnified by serial attention from staff members at applying and reviewing parties.
The process was also designed to deliver the benefits of “convening the system”, giving shared responsibility for the creation of project ranking criteria and the design of threshold requirements to State agency grant staff and REDC leaders during a series of mandatory forums. This was intended to reduce the occurrence of interjurisdictional snafus (where projects would be authorized for funding by certain agencies or the REDCs, but be unable to proceed because of regulatory or permit requirements from other agencies) and tie State agency priorities more closely to local economic needs. Agencies and Regional Economic are to review applications for their accordance with regional economic development plans, formulated by REDCs in accordance with guidance from the Governor’s office, in addition to agency priorities. Funded projects that are a part of “Projects of Regional Significance” or other priority status are moved to the top of the permitting and approval list for certain agencies. This allows the State to direct its funding in apparently the most concentrated, bang-for the buck way (projects that do not support regional economic priorities are scored lower, and therefore are less likely to receive funding), and to maintain a procedural focus on the Governors’ priority: economic recovery and expansion.
In conjunction with the development of the new CFA process, Cuomo capitalized on expanded focus on the State budget woes to push though a measure that was previously though to be impossible: he drastically reduced the funding available for discretionary funding by legislators, or ‘member items’, and redirected some of it to the CFA process. This was publicly described as a way to control pork barrel spending: It was aimed at reducing the influence of state legislators in delivering funding to their constituencies without accountability to the governor’s office or State agencies, at disencumbering the passage of day-to-day legislation, and eliminating legislative allocations of funds from State agency budgets for projects which ran counter to their missions or regulations. In a more Machiavellian sense, this also served as an attack on political support for republican legislators who made their names through their abilities to “bring home the bacon” while refusing to work in a bipartisan or inter-branch fashion.
The NYCFA process is still on testing grounds: there have been only two funding rounds so far, and the results of the funded projects i
n terms of procedural perfection and economic returns have yet to be determined. In the end, it could be a model for the federal government and other states to follow in an effort to streamline and unite their own funding processes and priorities, and as a venue to hammer out interagency differences in procedural requirements.
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