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1. What is the contract term for these funds? Is it a 12-month contract? A 24-month contract? Is there a specific date that the funds must be expended by? Please provide more clarity here.

Preference is for funds to be spent as quickly as possible.  The City would prefer to execute 12-month contracts.  However, the City will consider proposals for spending funds for a longer period, up to 20 months may be considered.  ESG funds have to be fully spent and drawn down from the federal system within two years and it takes time to work through the draw down process.

2. Item #2 on the Revised Scoring Rubric for Covid-19 ESG allocation focuses on an organization’s operating reserves.

Is this in an attempt to gauge an organization’s strength and ability to operate for an extended period before being reimbursed?  Or are you asking organizations to expend all their reserves before utilizing Covid-ESG funds?

The COVID ESG funds are intended to serve as emergency funds for organizations that have been significantly impacted by the COVID 19 crisis, either in terms of demand for their services, fundraising or both. To this end, the City is attempting to understand the relative need for City funding.  It is important that organizations be able to maintain at least a six-month reserve in order to provide working capital and to serve as a hedge against unexpected funding changes.  Larger liquid reserves (beyond six months) suggest that the organization may have the ability to self-fund some of the activities for which City funds are being requested, while still maintaining a healthy reserve balance.

 

3. If awarded funding, would the awarded amount be an amendment to a current ESG contract with the CDD; or would this be a completely new and separate contract?

Funds might be added to an existing contract if there is a contract already in place with the City of Durham for the same services.  If the contract is amended there would be a second scope of work to ensure ESG-COVID funds are tracked separately.  If there is not a current contract in place for the same services or the City and/or the contractor determine a new contract is required, a new contract will be written. 

4. If this would be a new contract, can you gauge how long it would take to get the contract executed and when the contract start-up meeting would happen?

A new contract would follow the normal contract process and is determined by the dollar amount of the contract.  This process usually takes approximately eight weeks.  It is likely that a contract amendment would most likely take a similar amount of time, as most amendments would require City Council approval.
 

5. Item #4 on the Scoring Rubric focuses on the cost of the activity per household. What tool are you utilizing to determine this statement:

“Applications that appear to inflate the number of households to be served to reduce the per household cost will have points deducted, at the discretion of the scorers.”?  This seems arbitrary and subjective unless there is a tool to determine this. Please advise.

This question will be evaluated against past performance of an agency to determine if the numbers of people being served are in alignment with past costs and numbers of people being served and staff capacity lines up with numbers of people expected to be served.