Frequently Asked Questions
Note: The question submission period ended June 15, 2009


Q: At the top of page 8, the RFA instructs to "include a copy of your last CPA audit and financial statements for the most current period available to show your financial capability." Would a letter from our CPA stating he has reviewed our books and prepared our tax statements meet this requirement? Or is a full, formal audit required?
A: We recognize that the financial requirements listed in the RFA were overly restrictive. Our interest is in knowing applicant capacity for managing the fiscal aspect of contracts. In lieu of submitting financial statements, please give a detailed description of how you manage contract revenues and expenditures and describe your internal financial controls.

Q: We understand from the application that we are not to provide an estimate of hours, but if our understanding is incorrect, please advise.
A: We do not require an estimate of hours in your application.

Q: Our standard practice is to provide a single, loaded hourly rate. Are we to break out benefits and an indirect cost rate from the base rate to unpack these loaded rates?
A: Providing a single loaded hourly rate is acceptable, but please detail as an attachment what costs are incorporated into that rate.

Q: What are your 08/09 and 09/10 budgets?
A: Click HERE for an overview of our 08/09 and 09/10 budgets.

Q: What is your budget range for evaluation?
A: First 5 Shasta allocates up to 10% of its annual tax revenue allocation to evaluation. First 5 Shasta's anticipated state allocation for 2009-10 is $1,547,321; and for 2010-11 is $1,499,808.

Q: Will there be a "data audit" of some sort describing data sets currently being gathered and available to program staff?
A: Information regarding data currently being collected will be shared during the contracting process, and the new evaluation team will have access to all data that is in process of being collected.

Q: Under the section on Evaluation Activities, E. Reporting Requirements, item 3 (top of page 5): How frequent are the individual reports for each funded program to be prepared and submitted? Is it annually? Or, at the end of the 2-year evaluation contract? Or other?
A: Currently most programs have an individual evaluation report prepared annually; a few are evaluated only at the end of their contract term.

Q: I did not notice that the evaluator(s) is to prepare one overall comprehensive evaluation report, say, summarizing the findings of the funded programs. Is this not to be a requested service?
A: Under our current evaluation plan, we do not require a comprehensive evaluation report summarizing results across programs. We are in the process of re-evaluating our evaluation practices, and we will be negotiating reporting requirements as a part of the contact development process with the selected team of evaluators.

Q: How many grantees are currently funded by First 5 Shasta?
A: The list of currently funded programs is found HERE.

Q: Does First 5 Shasta have a cross-grantee data system in place? If not, is such a system under consideration?
A: First 5 Shasta is in the process of developing a comprehensive data system to track data for our current grantees. Several programs have already transitioned to the new system. We expect the system to be completely by late August 2009.