The long-awaited guidance for the Defense Community Infrastructure Program (DCIP) was posted on Grants.gov on Friday.
According to the grant description, the priority focus of DCIP is for “military family quality of life, military resilience, and military value (in that order). The award floor is listed at $25,0000 and award ceiling is $25 million. The current version of grant notice is listed as “forecasted,” which means there will be a 12-day public comment period before the Final Federal Funding Opportunity notice.
The guidance outlines criteria, process and timeline for the funding that will need to be obligated by September 30th, 2020.
This comes after delays in the program which sparked several congressional inquiries of the DoD. “I received several letters I have reviewed recently and got a quick briefing on it,” said Defense Secretary Mark Esper about DCIP in February. “My understanding is that they’re going to be delivering recommendations with regards to implementation in the coming weeks, a month or so,”
For fiscal year 2020 Congress approved $50 million for DCIP which will be managed by the Office of Economic Adjustment.
The Association of Defense Communities will be hosting an upcoming series of briefings on DCIP guidance, please stay tuned for future details.
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In a COVID-19 Military Support Initiative (CMSI) virtual town hall meeting on Thursday, Rep. Garamendi discussed the imminent release of DCIP guidance.
“With regards to the defense community program: yes, it is in the law; yes, money was appropriated; yes, the military was ignoring it,” said Garamendi. “We had a conversation last week with Ellen Lord [Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment] and let’s just say we rattled her cage.”
Garamendi said Lord explained the RFP for DCIP went out last week. Sources with understanding of the process have confirmed that DoD has begun briefing Hill staff after the final guidance memo was signed off by DoD over the weekend.
“That will give the communities, and the bases, opportunity to apply the money that is available,” he said. But Garamendi warned the timeline for this process is “very, very short.”
To listen to the full recording of the CMSI town hall and learn more about upcoming events, please visit the initiative’s website.
Photo by DoD
