Health Center Program Performance Period Extensions

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES <SUBAGY>Health Resources and Services Administration</SUBAGY> <SUBJECT>Health Center Program Performance Period Extensions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Department of Health and Human Services. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of 3-month extension for Bronx Community Health Network, Inc. (BCHN). <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> To avoid a gap in services to its service area between the end of BCHN's current period of performance and the next Service Area Competition (SAC), BCHN will receive a 3-month Extension with Funds to extend the end date of its period of performance from January 31, 2026, to April 30, 2026. BCHN currently has a period of performance ending on January 31, 2026. Extending BCHN's total period of performance to April 30, 2026, will prevent interruption in access to critical primary health care services in the community currently served by BCHN. Since there will be no SAC competition released for health centers with a period of performance end date of January 31, 2026, this extension will also permit BCHN to apply to the SAC application cycle for health centers with a period of performance end date of April 30, 2026. </SUM> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Erica Clift, Division Director, Office of Program and Policy Development, Bureau of Primary Care, HRSA, at <E T="03">eclift@hrsa.gov</E> and 301-443-0741. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Intended Recipient of the Award:</E> BCHN, which serves the Bronx, New York service area. The Bronx is a community that is vulnerable to a lapse in access to comprehensive primary care services. <E T="03">Amount of Award(s):</E> 1 award for $2,377,440. <E T="03">Project Period:</E> February 1, 2022, to April 30, 2026. <E T="03">Assistance Listing Number:</E> 93.224. <E T="03">Award Instrument:</E> Grant—Non-competing Continuation. <E T="03">Authority:</E> Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. 254b, as amended). <E T="03">Justification:</E> Providing BCHN a 3-month extension to April 30, 2026, is consistent with the Health Center Program's policy decision to change from 3-year project periods to 4-year project periods in a phased-in approach over the next 2 years and to align with the SAC cycle that begins in April 2026. Health centers currently receive a 3-year period of performance when they successfully compete and receive Health Center Program funding through an SAC. HRSA will begin to move health centers with a current 3-year period of performance to a 4-year period of performance through a phased approach starting in FY 2026 with periods of performance beginning on May 1, 2026, to: • Reduce the burden on health centers by extending the timing for their operational site visits and their SAC application submission from every 3 years to every 4 years; • Provide HRSA with increased operational flexibility and efficiency by distributing the review and processing of SACs, Program Analysis and Recommendations, and operational site visits more evenly across the 4-year funding cycles of health center competitive awards without sacrificing the integrity of compliance reviews and funding decisions for the Health Center Program; and • Increase the continuity of patient access to comprehensive primary health care services by committing each health center to a longer time frame in each service area, while remaining aligned with current grants requirements and policies. HRSA will provide BCHN with a 3-month extension with funds to ensure continuity of services between the current period of performance end date and when a new award is made for the service area. <E T="03">Request for Recipient Response:</E> This action extends the period of performance with funds to your Health Center Program (H80CS00626) award. BCHN's award with a current period of performance of February 1, 2022, through January 31, 2026, will be extended by 3 months to April 30, 2026. This extension will prevent interruptions in access to critical health care services in the community. To process this action, BCHN must respond to this request for information (RFI) within the specified timeframe by providing a SF-424A and Budget Narrative, as detailed below. <E T="03">Activities/Requirements:</E> Activities and work funded under this 3-month extension are within the scope of the current award. All of the terms and conditions of the current award apply to activities and work supported by this 3-month extension. <E T="03">Required Submission Response:</E> BCHN must submit the response to the RFI in HRSA's Electronic Handbook. If HRSA does not receive a response to the RFI by the deadline, or the response to the RFI is incomplete or non-responsive, there may be a delay or lapse in the issuance of funding. The response should not exceed 20 pages, single-spaced, and must include the following information. <HD SOURCE="HD1">1. SF-424A: Budget Information Form</HD> Upload an SF-424A: BUDGET INFORMATION FORM attachment. <E T="03">Section A: Budget Summary:</E> Verify the pre-populated list of Health Center Program funding types: <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Community Health Center (CHC)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Migratory and Seasonal Agricultural Workers (MSAW)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Homeless Population (HP)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Residents of Public Housing (RPH)</FP> If the funding types are incorrect, make necessary adjustments. In the Federal column, provide the funding request for each Health Center Program funding type (CHC, MSAW, HP, RPH). The total federal funding requested across all Health Center Program funding types must align with the amount provided in the request from HRSA. <NOTE> <HD SOURCE="HED">Note:</HD> This RFI submission may not be used to request changes to the total award, funding type(s), or Health Center Program funds allocation between funding types. Funding must be requested and will be awarded proportionately for all funding types as currently funded under the Health Center Program. </NOTE> In the Non-Federal column, provide the total non-federal funding sources for each type of Health Center Program (CHC, MSAW, HP, RPH). <E T="03">Section B: Object Class Categories:</E> Provide the object class category breakdown ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> line-item budget) for FY 2026 budgeted funds. Include federal funding in the first column and non-federal funding in the second column. Each line represents a distinct object class category that must be addressed in the Budget Narrative. Indirect costs may only be claimed with an approved indirect cost rate (see details in the Budget Narrative section below). <E T="03">Section C: Non-Federal Resources:</E> Provide a breakdown of non-federal funds by funding source ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> state, local) for each type of Health Center Program funding (CHC, MSAW, HP, RPH). If you are a state agency, leave the State column blank and include state funding in the Applicant column. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Salary Rate Limitation</HD> As required by the current appropriations act, “[n]one of the funds appropriated in this title shall be used to pay the salary of an individual, through a grant or other extramural mechanism, at a rate over Executive Level II” (see <E T="03">https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/25Tables/exec/html/EX.aspx</E> ). Effective January 2025, the salary rate limitation is $225,700. As required by law, salary rate limitations may apply in future years and will be updated. <HD SOURCE="HD1">2. Budget Narrative</HD> Upload a Budget Narrative attachment for the budget period (February 1, 2025, to April 30, 2026) that explains the amounts requested for each line in Section B: Object Class Categories of the SF-424A Budget Information Form. The Budget Narrative must itemize both your federal request and non-federal resources. The Budget Narrative must describe how each line-item will support achieving the project objectives. Refer to 45 CFR 75 (2 CFR 200) for information on allowable costs (see <E T="03">https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-45/subtitle-A/subchapter-A/part-75#part-75</E> ). Include detailed calculations explaining how each line-item expense within each cost category is derived ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> number of visits, cost per unit). Include a description for each item in the “other” category. Include the following in the Budget Narrative: <E T="03">Personnel Costs:</E> Explain personnel costs and list each staff member who will be supported by Health Center Program funds, name (if possible), position title, percentage of full-time equivalency, and annual salary. <E T="03">Reminder:</E> An individual's base salary, per se, is NOT constrained by the statutory provision for a salary limitation. The rate limitation limits the amount that may be awarded and charged to the HRSA grant. Provide an individual's actual base salary if it exceeds the cap. Refer to the Sample Budget Narrative on the Budget Period Progress Report Technical Assistance web page (see <E T="03"> https://bphc.hrsa.gov/funding/funding-opportunities/budget- period-progress-report-bpr-noncompeting-continuation-ncc </E> ). <E T="03">Fringe Benefits:</E> List the components that make up the fringe benefit rate, for example, health insurance, taxes, unemployment insurance, life insurance, retirement plans, and tuition reimbursement. The fringe benefits should be directly proportional to the personnel costs allocated for the project. <E T="03">Travel:</E> List travel costs according to local and long-distance travel. For local travel, outline the mileage rate, number of miles, reason for travel, and staff members/consum ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━