Fiscal Year Operating Plan

Each August during the award period, the project team formulates an operating plan based on the work plan submitted in the application. The plan identifies events, projected dates, team responsibilities, and a rough cost estimates for each event and ongoing activity scheduled during the fiscal year (October through September). Applicants do not submit fiscal year operating plans in their applications. These are developed only after receipt of an award and designation of the project team.

The cooperator provides to the federal team members a list of the three to ten most significant activities or other project undertakings planned for the year. The cooperator provides a very rough estimate of the total value of the MDCP project budget to be devoted to each of the most significant activities or other project undertakings. The estimate is simply an approximation of the portion of the total MDCP project budget (award, cash match, in-kind match, and indirect costs) that will be devoted to each of the identified activities/undertakings during the coming federal fiscal year. These estimates allow ITA to determine which activities/undertakings are of greatest importance and most worthy of the use of ITA administrative funds. The estimates need not reconcile to financial reports and are not part of NOAA's financial accounting. They are simply used to help ITA plan its support of a cooperator's upcoming activities. Depending on the size of the project budget, rounding to the nearest $5,000 or $10,000 is probably accurate enough.

Federal team members will estimate the cost of their participation in and support of your planned project activities and undertakings during the federal fiscal year.