Suzanne reached out regarding a question about the scope of SAKI Purpose Area 1 activities and if they can use leftover funds for genealogy searches.
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Suzanne sent the following email:
Hi Lisa:
I’m not sure if this is a question you can answer or whether I should go straight to our BJA grant manager.
I’m at a stage in our first SAKI grant where we might have funds remaining by the end of the grant. I’m looking for options for program scope modification to expend the remaining funds. One suggestion that came up from our law enforcement partner was to use the fund for genealogy searches (not further testing) that would rely on the genealogy resources available to law enforcement. We are funded under Program Area 1, which allows for funds “supporting crime/intelligence analysis activities and resources to help identify perpetrators.” I thought that maybe we could rely on that to make the argument for funding this activity. I know that Purpose Area 4 explicitly states that funds can be used for forensic genealogy searches.
Are you aware of any other Program Area 1 SAKI sites that may have used their funds for this purpose? Do you have any other thoughts on this?
Thanks for your help on this!
Lisa reached out to Pattie and Crystal for guidance.
Pattie responded and said that Suzanne would need to reach out to BJA.
Lisa responded to Suzanne and offered to set up a phone call or that she could reach out to them directly.
Suzanne responded with the following:
We got the okay from Mila Hago to my question—yes this is an acceptable expense.
Now I have another one, which will likely have to go through Mila as well, but I thought I would try you first.
We have three overlapping grant applications to test the Minnesota inventory. In the first grant, we sought money to test SAKs in our inventory. In the second grant application (when we knew more about the time/effort/cost of testing, we asked for funds to test SAKs in what we categorized as our “tier 3 and tier 4,” noting that the SAKs from tier 1 and 2 agencies would be tested under our first grant. And in the third grant application we sought funds to test whatever was left from tiers 1-4.
So far we have kept the testing of these distinct groups separate for billing purposes. However, we now have an issue. Our tier 1 group has all been tested, but we have some law enforcement agencies in the tier 2 group (paid for under our first SAKI grant) that are taking their time to submit, with the possible result that the scientist hired for the first grant will run out of work. At the same time, we have plenty of SAKs from our tier 3 and 4 agencies coming in which the scientist hired under the first grant could work on, as well as the scientist hired under the second grant.
We created these “tiers” as a way to categorized the agencies (tier 1 has the most SAKs per agency, and tier 4 has the fewest), but for the SAKI grant purposes, it’s still the same inventory.
Do you think testing SAKs from different tiers outside of our initial plan (but still from the same inventory) requires anything formal?
After confirming with Pattie and Crystal, Lisa sent the following response to Suzanne:
Thank you for reaching out. I am glad to hear that Mila confirmed that this is an acceptable expense.
With regards to your other question, it should be OK since it’s all from the same inventory, but please go ahead and email Mila as a courtesy. As long as this is tracked correctly in the PMT, there should not be any concerns.
Please let me know if you have additional questions.
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