WCC has over 40 years of experience administering federal and state grant budgets and has an office dedicated to grants accounting to ensure funds are available and transactions are made in compliance with funder regulations. This office reports directly to the college Controller and currently manages the budgets for approximately $5 million worth of federal and state grants each year. Some of the college’s larger grant programs are highlighted below.
WCC is currently in the second year of a $2.9 million 2013 Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training grant (DOL TAA CCCT). The grant funded a Shifting Code program with 17 participants that ran in Fall 2013. WCC is deploying grant-funded IT courses for displaced workers as they are developed, semester by semester, with the final course to be available for offering by Winter 2015. The program currently has approximately 60 participants starting their first credit classes and six students in the non-credit course.
WCC is in the final year of a $430,000 Higher Education for Development (HED) grant to develop entrepreneurship curriculum in partnership with Al Quds College in Jordan. Through this grant, WCC faculty are developing toolkits embedded with entrepreneurship curriculum to be used in occupational education programs. This grant is made possible by the American people through the U.S. Agency For International Development (USAID) program.
“These grants serve as great catalysts for learning as they allow our faculty to develop new curricula and programs,” said Laura Crane, WCC grant administrator. “They also support our valued students by helping them with tuition and needed services. It’s such a joy to see the grant money put to work to enhance the lives of so many people.”
In 2010, WCC successfully completed a three year, $2.1 million Community Based Job Training grant for which it was the fiscal agent, responsible for overseeing all grant activity in conjunction with eight other community college partners.
During the Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration’s site visit to WCC in year two of the grant, one of its regional administrators commented that the collaboration was the “most impressive” he’d seen in 15 years.
In terms of procurement, financial and reporting processes, outside funded projects are held to the same procurement process that WCC has in place for the general fund.
If stricter requirements are in the grant regulations, then those requirements are followed. Each externally funded project is assigned a unique accounting string to track appropriate expenditures within the accounting system. The transactions within this string are analyzed and reconciled prior to reporting and request of reimbursement. Supporting documentation is kept for the specified duration period, either electronically or hard copy.
In addition to these one-time large grant programs, WCC annually receives grants from the State of Michigan to fund the Motorcycle Safety program and the Law Enforcement Standards training program and the Adult Transitions GED Plus program.