22 M.R.S. §4100-B: Building Opportunity Through Out-of-school Time Program

The Building Opportunity Through Out-of-school Time Program is established in the department as a competitive grant program to expand out-of-school programming by increasing or enhancing current programming, reducing barriers for access to out-of-school programming and creating new programming.

1. Building Opportunity Through Out-of-school Time Program Fund. The Building Opportunity Through Out-of-school Time Program Fund is established as a nonlapsing fund to provide funding to achieve the purposes of the program. The fund consists of any funds received from private and public sources. The fund must be held separate from all other money, funds and accounts. Any balance remaining in the fund at the end of any fiscal year must be carried forward to the next fiscal year.

2. Duties of the department. The department shall:

A. Establish by rule the process through which eligible providers may apply for program grants, the criteria used to make program grant award determinations and the allowable program grant award uses;

B. Enter into agreements with 3rd-party entities, including intermediate units, to carry out the provisions of this chapter;

C. Establish guidelines and standards necessary to implement the provisions of this chapter;

D. Publish the process, criteria and uses of program grant funds on its publicly accessible website;

E. Annually publish the program grant awards organized by grantee, on its publicly accessible website;

F. Ensure program grant agreements allow individuals receiving services pursuant to program grant awards to remain eligible for funds under chapter 1053‑B;

G. Leverage federal funding opportunities to the extent practicable to fund the grant program; and

H. Perform other functions necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter, including monitoring grantees.

3. Rules. The department shall adopt rules to implement the program. The rules must include grantee eligibility requirements, grant application and award procedures and grant funding limits. Rules adopted pursuant to this subsection are routine technical rules as defined in Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter 2‑A.

4. Implementation. The department may not take steps to implement the program until the Legislature provides funding sufficient for the department to issue the grant awards outlined in section 4100‑C.