Grant Profile: Septic Treatment Systems Upgrade

Grant Description

The MPCA County Subsurface Sewage Treatment Systems Upgrade (also known as the “SSTS Upgrade” grant) is a competitive grant program offered by MPCA to counties for installing individual SSTS upgrades. Funds are distributed as part of the Natural Resources Block Grant (NRBG), a composite of base grants available to local government units that help them implement programs designed to protect and improve water resources.

Reporting Overview

The SSTS Upgrade grant does not require a workplan. Expenses should be reported in eLINK, and a description of how the funds were used should be entered in the Actual Results field. The full amount of this grant is paid to the grantee upon execution of the NRBG grant agreement or, in the case of the second year of a biennial grant agreement, receipt of the Notice of Payment addendum.

eLINK Reporting Requirements

Reporting Activities and Activity Details

When reviewing reports for Septic Treatment Systems Upgrade grants, the most important outcome BWSR and MPCA program staff are looking for is the count of septic system improvements completed. The guidance below allows program staff to quickly identify these details for each grant, and to query eLINK for aggregate practice counts across multiple grants.
 

It is recommended that you minimize the number of Activities, and instead break out individual projects at the Activity Detail level. This approach should reduce the time needed for the grantee to complete reporting. For example, you may have an “SSTS Upgrade Installation” Activity with both Current State Grant and Local Fund landowner budget rows. You may also have an “Administration” Activity, as shown in the example below:

Individual landowner projects can then be tracked at the Activity Detail level; entering one Activity Detail per project allows you to accurately enter the Installed Date for each project. The “Indicators” column should contain a value of “1”, indicating you have entered a pollution prevention (see below). Within the Edit screen (), select Practice type “126M – Septic System Improvement”, and enter the Count of Activities. Because these grants benefit low-income landowners, we ask that these projects are not mapped so that landowners’ income status is not inadvertently identified through spatial data.

Expenditures are tracked at the Activity level. When reporting expenditures related to a specific landowner project, including the landowner name in the description (e.g. “John Doe – Check #8873”) allows program staff to track expenditures to the specific project listed in the Activity Details when reviewing and approving reports.