All grant award funds obligated under the NTIA’s Public Telecommunications and Facilities Program (PTFP) will be disbursed using the Department of Treasury's (Treasury) Automated Standard Application for Payments (ASAP) system. This payment system allows grant and cooperative agreement recipients to withdraw funding directly from an established ASAP account for each award. Withdrawn amounts are deposited directly into the bank account identified by the recipient during the enrollment process. Several PTFP recipients are already using the ASAP system.

The ASAP enrollment process is managed by the Department of Treasury. The NIST Grants and Agreements Management Division (GAMD) will provide a list of PTFP recipient organizations to Treasury. Treasury will then contact each recipient organization, usually via email, and provide a complete enrollment package. It is very important that the enrollment package be completed as soon as possible and that you follow all the instructions provided.

Once Treasury has accepted your enrollment package they will inform the organization and NIST’s GAMD of the recipient and payment requestor id numbers (IDs). GAMD will then establish an account in ASAP for each award that your organization has with PTFP. Once GAMD establishes and certifies the account in ASAP the organization’s payment requestor should have access to the funds immediately.

If you are already enrolled to use the ASAP system with another agency, Treasury will not need the organization to enroll again, however they will confirm that the banking information for the PTFP award remains unchanged.

All FY 2004 new awards contain a Special Award Condition similar to that found in the example below. All funds obligated under those awards will be disbursed through ASAP. There is no need to submit an SF-270, Request for Advance or Reimbursement or a SF-272, Federal Cash Transaction Report.

All awards that were obligated prior to FY 2004 and expire after June 30, 2004, and for which an unliquidated balance remains, will be cut-over to the ASAP system for all remaining disbursements. These recipients will follow the enrollment procedures described above. An amendment to each award document will be executed and will contain a Special Award Condition similar to that found in Exhibit A. The amount of funds that will be made available in ASAP for withdraw will be equal to the agreed upon unliquidated balance of the grant at the time the ASAP account is established. The GAMD grant specialist will confirm the unliquidated balance with the recipient and the NIST accounts payable department before certifying the funds in ASAP. Recipients can continue to send an SF-270, Request for Advance or Reimbursement to the GAMD Grant Specialist until they receive their ASAP IDs.

For more information regarding ASAP go to http://www.fms.treas.gov/asap/index.html . If you have any questions regarding this letter, or the implementation of ASAP, please contact Melinda Chukran, Grants Specialist, at 301-975-5266 or via e-mail at <Melinda.chukran@nist.gov> or the Grant Specialist named in your award document.

Exhibit A

(Special Award Condition)

Amendment to Department of Commerce, Financial Assistance Standard Terms and Conditions, dated October 2001, Section A.02, Award Payments:

The advance method of payment shall be authorized unless otherwise specified in a special award condition.

Payments will be made through electronic funds transfers, using the Department of Treasury's, Automated Standard Application for Payment (ASAP) system, and in accordance with the requirements of the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996. The following information is required when making withdraws for this award: (1) ASAP account identification (id) = award number found on the cover sheet of this award; (2) Agency Location Code (ALC) = 13060001; and (3) Region Code = 02 Recipients do not need to submit a "Request for Advance or Reimbursement" (SF-270) for payments relating to this award. If you are not enrolled as an ASAP Recipient Organization you must complete the enrollment process with your Federal Reserve Bank, Regional Finance Center. Enrollment applications and information can be found at http://www.fms.treas.gov/asap/. If you need a paper copy of the enrollment documentation please contact the Grant Specialist responsible for this award.

Advances taken through the ASAP shall be limited to the minimum amounts necessary to meet immediate disbursement needs. Advanced funds not disbursed in a timely manner must be promptly returned, via an ASAP credit, to the account from which the advanced funding was withdrawn. Advances shall be for periods not to exceed 30 days.

This award has the following control or withdraw limits set in ASAP:

          _____                      None

          _____                      Agency Review required for all withdrawals

          _____                      Agency Review required for all withdrawal requests over $_________ (see explanation below)

          _____                      Maximum Draw Amount controls (see explanation below):

                                           $___________        each month

                                           $___________        each quarter

                                           $___________        each year