Five days for $15 million, WIOA reauthorization, and $1.9 billion in grants listings.
Plus, a new question about re-entry grants and WANTO watch.
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Hello
Greetings from the road, where I’m heading to Kalamazoo for the Inside Politics panel and a workshop at this weekend’s Michigan Works! annual conference. Say “Hey” if you see me.
Toplines
News you should know about the money that gets people to work.
Countdown.
We’re 25 days from the end of the fiscal year. Tens of millions in workforce funding likely will expire with it.
Five days to submit a potentially 200-page application for $15 million.
Something I have been thinking for much of the past week—and had some smart people agree with me—is that if a funding solicitation hasn’t hit the street yet, the second Trump Administration probably is going to just let the money expire.
Not so fast, my friend. Late Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families announced a $15 million funding opportunity for creating jobs for people from low-income backgrounds.
The application deadline is Monday for the 70-page solicitation, which has specific instructions for an up-to-200-page application with nearly 20 attachments. Projects start on September 30. HHS first forecast the grant opportunity in April, per grants.gov. Previous funding opportunities typically gave applicants around two to three months.
This is—to use a highly technical term—crazypants. Quite frankly, it’s also not great management of taxpayer funds for a Trump Administration that uses that hook as an explanation for all sorts of things when it comes to grantmaking and spending. These projects are likely to be undercooked at best, particularly since HHS doesn’t look to have streamlined the application process from last year’s solicitation, which took applications between May 2 and July 17 of 2024.
How similar is it to last year’s solicitation? An analysis by my Robot Research Assistant found that 82 percent of this year’s funding opportunity is the same or similar text as the 2024 solicitation. According to the solicitation file, it was last updated at 4:16 p.m. on Wednesday. The metadata shows it was created at 2:53 p.m. that day (although reasonably the file could have been developed many weeks earlier).
It does say to not spend the money on “illegal DEIA,” which The Robot identified as the only significant addition to the competition. That said, this grant still includes points for helping underserved communities.
The good news—I guess—is that you probably shouldn’t give up on workforce cash that hasn’t hit the street because doing so will cost you the opportunity to suddenly have a well-funded project within three weeks. The bad news is the amount of work you’re going to have to do and the question of how thoughtfully the application requirements—and review—will be.
In light of the August 7 grantmaking executive order—which seemed dissatisfied with the current crop of grantees—the more cynical among us may ask if this is trying to cook competitions for pre-chosen groups aligned with Administration goals. I wouldn’t go that far yet, if only because I’m not sure I see that level of organization.
But if that was the case, I hope these mysterious new groups did some legwork not possible on a five-day application timeline, as described on Page 3 of this funding solicitation, part of which is below:
Hope you signed up!
This week’s grants listings number: $1.9 billion.
Well, there’s one grant I think you should hurry on if you’re interested. The big number remains stable even with a few decent-sized opportunities falling off the board.
Behind the paywall.
How this week’s House workforce bill could tie into WIOA reauthorization.
Mistakes with big consequences in this week’s House bill.
Another workforce funding pot that didn’t get spent?