In Crisis? Call or Text 988

Administrative and National Policy Requirements

If your application is funded, you must comply with all terms and conditions of the Notice of Award (NoA). SAMHSA’s standard terms and conditions are available.

HHS Grants Policy Statement (GPS)

If your application is funded, you are subject to the requirements of the HHS Grants Policy Statement (GPS) that are applicable based on recipient type and purpose of award. This includes any requirements in Parts I and II of the HHS GPS that apply to the award. The general terms and conditions in the HHS GPS will apply as indicated unless there are statutory, regulatory, or award-specific requirements to the contrary (as specified in the NoA).

HHS Award Regulations

If your application is funded, you agree that the award and any activities thereunder are subject to all provisions of 45 CFR part 75, currently in effect or implemented during the period of the award, other Department regulations and policies in effect at the time of the award, and applicable statutory provisions. For more information see the Grant Administration Policies and Regulations.

Additional Terms and Conditions

Depending on the nature of the specific funding opportunity and/or your proposed project as identified during review, SAMHSA may negotiate additional terms and conditions with you prior to award. These may include, for example:

  • actions required to be in compliance with confidentiality and participant protection/human subjects requirements.
  • requirements relating to additional data collection and reporting.
  • requirements relating to participation in a cross-site evaluation.
  • requirements to address problems identified in review of the application or the budget and narrative justification.

Performance Goals and Objectives

If your application is funded, you will be held accountable for the information provided in the application relating to performance targets. SAMHSA program officials will consider your progress in meeting goals and objectives, as well as your challenges and strategies for overcoming them, when making an annual recommendation to continue the award and the amount of any continuation award. In addition, you must relate financial data and accomplishments to the performance goals and objectives of the award. Failure to meet stated goals and objectives may result in suspension or termination (see 2 CFR 200.202, 2 CFR 200.301 and 2 CFR 200.329) of the award, or in reduction or withholding of continuation awards.

Termination of Federal Award

Note that the OMB revisions to Guidance for Grants and Agreements termination provisions located at 2 CFR § 200.340 - Termination apply to all federal awards effective August 13, 2020.

Accessibility Provisions for All Award Application Packages and Funding Opportunity Announcements

Recipients of federal financial assistance (FFA) from HHS are required to complete an HHS Assurance of Compliance form (HHS 690) in which you agree, as a condition of receiving the grant, to administer your programs in compliance with federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, sex, and disability, and agreeing to comply with federal conscience laws, where applicable. This includes ensuring that entities take meaningful steps to provide access to persons with limited English proficiency; and ensuring effective communication with persons with disabilities. Where applicable, Title XI and Section 1557 prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and gender identity, the HHS Office for Civil Rights provides guidance on complying with civil rights laws enforced by HHS.

You will administer your project in compliance with federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and comply with applicable conscience protections. You will comply with applicable laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, which includes discrimination on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy. Compliance with these laws require taking reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to persons with limited English proficiency and providing programs that are accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities. The HHS Office for Civil Rights provides guidance on complying with civil rights laws enforced by HHS. See For Providers of Health Care and Social Services and HHS Nondiscrimination Notice.

Acknowledgement of Federal Funding

As required by HHS appropriations acts, all HHS recipients must acknowledge Federal funding when issuing statements, press releases, publications, requests for proposal, bid solicitations, and other documents, such as tool-kits, resource guides, websites, and presentations describing the projects or programs funded in whole or in part with HHS federal funds. The recipient must clearly state: 1) the percentage and dollar amount of the total costs of the program or project funded with federal money; and 2) the percentage and dollar amount of the total costs of the project or program funded by non-governmental sources.

Supplement Not Supplant

Funds may be used to supplement existing activities. Award funds may not be used to supplant current funding of existing activities. “Supplant” is defined as replacing funding of a recipient’s existing program with funds from a federal award (2 CFR Part 200, Appendix XI (PDF | 20.5 MB)).

Mandatory Disclosures

A term may be added to the NoA which states: Consistent with 45 CFR 75.113, applicants and recipients must disclose in a timely manner, in writing to the HHS awarding agency, all information related to violations of federal criminal law involving fraud, bribery, or gratuity violations potentially affecting the federal award. Sub-recipients must disclose, in a timely manner, in writing to the prime recipient (pass through entity), all information related to violations of federal criminal law involving fraud, bribery, or gratuity violations potentially affecting the federal award. Disclosures must be sent in writing to SAMHSA at the following address:

SAMHSA
Attention: Office of Financial Advisory Services
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857

You may also submit a complaint via the OIG Hotline online form, by phone (1-800-447-8477), or by mail to the following address:

U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
Office of the Inspector General
ATTN: OIG Hotline Operations
P.O. Box 23489
Washington, DC 20026

Failure to make required disclosures can result in any of the remedies described in 45 CFR 75.371 Remedies for noncompliance; including suspension or debarment (See 2 CFR parts 180 & 376 and 31 U.S.C. 3321).

System for Award Management (SAM) Reporting

A term may be added to the NoA that states: “In accordance with the regulatory requirements provided at 45 CFR 75.113, 2 CFR 25, and Appendix XII to 45 CFR Part 75, recipients that have currently active federal awards and procurement contracts with cumulative total value greater than $10,000,000, must report and maintain information in the System for Award Management (SAM) about civil, criminal, and administrative proceedings in connection with the award or performance of a federal award that reached final disposition within the most recent five-year period. The recipient must also make semiannual disclosures about such proceedings. Proceedings information will be made publicly available in the designated integrity and performance system (currently Responsibility/Qualification in SAM.gov (R/Q)). Full reporting requirements and procedures are found in Appendix XII to 45 CFR Part 75.”

Drug-Free Workplace

A term may be added to the NoA that states: “You as the recipient must comply with drug-free workplace requirements in Subpart B of part 382, which adopts the Government-wide implementation (2 CFR part 182) of section 5152-5158 of the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 (Pub. L. 100-690, Title V, Subtitle D; 41 U.S.C. 701-707).”

Smoke-Free Workplace

The Public Health Service strongly encourages all award recipients to provide a smoke-free workplace and to promote the non-use of all tobacco products. Further, 20 USC 6081 et seq., the Pro-Children Act of 1994, prohibits smoking in certain facilities (or in some cases, any portion of a facility) in which regular or routine education, library, day care, health care or early childhood development services are provided to children.

Standards for Financial Management

Recipients and subrecipients are required to meet the standards and requirements for financial management systems in 45 CFR part 75 Subpart D. The financial systems must enable the recipient and subrecipient to maintain records that adequately identify the sources of funds for federally assisted activities and the purposes for which the award was used, including authorizations, obligations, unobligated balances, assets, liabilities, outlays or expenditures, and any program income. The system must also enable the recipient and subrecipient to compare actual expenditures or outlays with the approved budget for the award. SAMHSA funds must retain their award/subaward-specific identity and may not be commingled with non-federal funds or other federal funds. “Commingling funds” typically means depositing or recording funds in a general account without the ability to identify each specific source of funds with related expenditures. Common mistakes related to comingling are:

  • Commingling of Cost Centers: Every business activity constitutes a cost center. Examples of cost centers include: a federal award, a state award, a private award, matching costs for a specific award, a self-funded project, fundraising activities, membership activities, lines of business, unallowable costs, indirect costs, etc. Recipients and subrecipients must establish a unique account(s) in the accounting system to capture and accumulate expenditures of each cost center, apart from other cost centers.
  • Commingling of Cost Categories: Recipients and subrecipients must avoid budget fluctuations that violate programmatic restrictions. They must also avoid applying indirect cost rates to prohibited cost categories, such as equipment, participant support costs and subcontracts/subawards in excess of $25,000. As a result, recipients must establish unique object codes in the accounting system to capture and accumulate costs by budget category (i.e., salaries, fringe benefits, consultants, travel, participant support costs, subcontracts, etc.).
  • Commingling of Time Worked and Not Worked: Recipients and subrecipients may not directly charge an award for employees’ time not spent working on the award. Therefore, Paid Time Off (PTO), such as vacation, holiday, sick and other paid leave, is not recoverable directly from awards, but rather must be allocated to all awards, projects, and cost centers over an entire cost accounting period through either an indirect cost or fringe benefit rate.
  • Unsupported Labor Costs: To support charges for direct and indirect salaries and wages, recipients and subrecipients maintaining hourly timesheets must ensure that timesheets encompass all hours worked and not worked on a daily basis. The timesheet should identify the: (a) award, project or cost center being worked on; (b) number of hours worked on each; (c) description of work performed; and (d) Paid Time Off (PTO) hours. The total hours recorded each day should coincide with an individual’s employment status in accordance with established policy (i.e., fulltime employees work 8 hours each day, etc.).
  • Inconsistent Treatment of Costs: Recipients and subrecipients must treat costs consistently across all federal and non-federal awards, projects, and cost centers. For example, recipients and subrecipients may not direct-charge federal awards for costs typically considered indirect in nature, unless done consistently. Examples of indirect costs include administrative salaries, office rent, accounting fees, utilities, etc. Additionally, in most cases, the cost to develop an accounting system adequate to justify direct charging of the aforementioned items outweighs the benefits. As a result, use of an indirect cost rate is the most effective mechanism to recover these costs and not violate federal financial requirements of consistency, allocability and allowability. If typical indirect cost categories are included in the budget as direct costs, it is SAMHSA’s understanding that the recipient or subrecipient has developed a cost accounting system that can withstand audit scrutiny and therefore the system must be adequate to justify the direct charges and to avoid an unfair allocation of these costs to the federal government. All costs are subject to subsequent agency review and/or audit scrutiny in accordance with awards’ terms and conditions.

Trafficking in Persons

Awards issued by SAMHSA are subject to the requirements of 2 CFR part 175 and 22 USC 7104(g). For the full text of the award term, see Standard Terms and Conditions.

NOTE: The signature of the AOR on the application serves as the required certification of compliance for your organization regarding the administrative and national policy requirements.

Publications

Recipients are required to notify the Government Project Officer (GPO) of any materials based on the SAMHSA-funded project that are accepted for publication. In addition, SAMHSA requests that recipients:

  • Provide the GPO with advance copies of publications.
  • Include acknowledgment of the SAMHSA program as the source of funding for the project.
  • Include a disclaimer stating that the views and opinions contained in the publication do not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and should not be construed as such.

SAMHSA reserves the right to issue a press release about any publication deemed by SAMHSA to contain information of program or policy significance to the substance use treatment/substance use prevention/mental health services community.

Prohibition on Certain Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Services or Equipment

As described in 2 CFR 200.216, recipients and subrecipients are prohibited to obligate or spend award funds (to include direct and indirect expenditures as well as cost share and program funds) to:

  1. Procure or obtain,
  2. Extend or renew a contract to procure or obtain, or
  3. Enter into contract (or extend or renew contract) to procure or obtain equipment, services, or systems that use covered telecommunications equipment or services as a substantial or essential component of any system, or as critical technology as part of any system. As described in Pub. L. 115-232, section 889, covered telecommunications equipment is telecommunications equipment produced by Huawei Technologies Company or ZTE Corporation (or any subsidiary or affiliate of such entities).
    • For the purpose of public safety, security of government facilities, physical security surveillance of critical infrastructure, and other national security purposes, video surveillance and telecommunications equipment produced by Hytera Communications Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company, or Dahua Technology Company (or any subsidiary or affiliate of such entities).
    • Telecommunications or video surveillance services provided by such entities or using such equipment.
    • Telecommunications or video surveillance equipment or services produced or provided by an entity that the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Director of the National Intelligence or the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, reasonably believes to be an entity owned or controlled by, or otherwise, connected to the government of a covered foreign country.
Last Updated: 06/05/2023
Source: https://www.samhsa.gov/grants/how-to-apply/forms-and-resources/administrative-national-policy-requirements