Video 15: Line Item Budget and Budget Narrative

Line Item Budget and Budget Narrative

This section will provide you with an overview of the Line-Item Budget, and Budget Narrative.

The line-item budget and budget narrative list the resources and the costs associated with implementing your project, which are organized by Object Class Categories. Object Class Categories are main budget headings which are further broken down into separate line-item entries.

Additionally, the line-item budget has four distinct columns the Object Class Category (detailed items to be included in each line); the Federal Share (the amount being requested from ANA); the Non-Federal Share (the required 20% total project cost match/in-kind which is the amount being contributed to the project by the applicant or applicant’s partners); the Total (this will show the line totals and category totals). Also included will be indirect cost rate, when applicable. The budget narrative describes how each line-item cost was calculated and includes a concise explanation of why it is necessary to the project.

Please Note: We highly encourage completing the OWP and the budget first, then going back to complete the narrative sections. This will allow you to see the full extent of the scope and costs of the project and ensure the narrative matches these key pieces of the application and your project.

Hello and welcome to the 2025 ANA pre-application training, line item budget and budget narrative.
In the notice of funding opportunities, there are three elements corresponding with the line item budget and budget narrative. What they ask for is a detailed line item budget with the appropriate object class categories for every year, a budget narrative for every year of the project, and then that the expenditures in the line item budget and budget narrative align with the implementation plan and the OWP.
The budget portion of your application should include a line item budget and a budget narrative. We do recommend that you have your objective work plan in front of you when you're planning out your project budget. It'll help you consider all costs that you anticipate for your project. Include all costs needed to ensure the completion of all activities listed in the OWP.
Some tips on putting together your budget. Make sure that you follow federal object class categories, which we'll talk about in just a moment. Identify your 20% of total project cost for the non-federal share for every year of the project. This is your match. Work with your finance person for pay scales, fringe rates, and indirect cost, and clean up and scale budget templates. This is a good opportunity to become really good friends with your finance person, buy them coffee. They are going to be a huge help for you throughout this process.
The first thing that we're going to talk about is calculating your non-federal share. The best way to calculate this is to take the total federal request, so this is what you're requesting from the grant, and multiply it by 25%, or 0.25, and that will help you determine your non-federal share. So for an example, if you're requesting $300,000, you multiply that by 25% and it informs you that you need 75,000 for your match requirement.
When you go through and complete your line item budget, these are those federal object class categories. You'll need to respond to these sections in your line item and budget and budget narrative. This includes personnel, the fringe benefits for personnel, travel, equipment, supplies, contractual and other.
If you don't currently have one, I highly encourage you to consider using our budget template when you're completing your budget. This is available on the USB drive and our training website. This aligns with the required format for all of those object class categories that we talked about. When you are completing your budget, include vendor quotes and estimates as attachments. This also includes if you are researching airfare, take screenshots of what those costs will be,. If you are getting per diem for travel, take a screenshot of the per diem rates. Have all of that as your backup documentation when you're putting your budget together. The template that's available to you on our virtual USB drive can be used for either SEDS or SEDS-AK. And as a quick reminder for both SEDS and SEDS-AK, the budget period runs from September 30 to September 29.
All right, here's a look at a line item budget. You'll see here that you have them separated by categories. So here you can see personnel and fringe. You'll have the subtotals at the bottom for each category. And then, in the columns, you'll have the federal share, which is coming from the grant. This is what's requested for your project. You'll also include your non-federal share or match amounts in the next column. Lastly, the column on the right is your running total for each of those categories. And at the bottom of your budget should calculate everything.
When determining personnel, this is staff that are working directly on your project. What's really important is to use job titles as opposed to names because turnover is a thing. It can happen. So have the job title connected with that job. Have a time delineation. This is showing how much time they're devoting to the project. Here you can see that we have full-time employees, one FTE, but there's also a half-time employee, 0.5 FTE. You have their salary, which can either be the federal share or the match or a combination. And then the running total on the right-hand column. Below your personnel is your fringe benefits. This is all of your taxes. Retirement benefits, you'll put these amounts in here, and typically, your finance person, or if you have an HR person, they'll know what these rates are.
The next category I'd like to discuss is your travel. Travel is out of town, overnight travel associated with your project. For these two examples here, these are ANA-required trainings or meetings that take place. The post-work training is a one-time training that takes place on the first year of your grant in Anchorage. The next trip is the annual grantee meeting that has taken place in Washington DC. When you calculate travel, you'll research airfare rates, you'll research per diem rates, lodging, anything associated with those trips you'll include in that appropriate category. And again, post-work travel is only for year one of your project.
The next category is supplies and equipment. The big difference here is that equipment is defined as a single item purchase equaling $10,000 or more based on two CFR part 200. Your agency may have a more restrictive policy on equipment purchases, and that's okay. You'll just have to reference that in your application that you're using your internal purchasing procedures. They can be more defined than two CFR 200, but they can't be less defined. So an equipment purchase has to be within a certain threshold that $10,000 to be in alignment with the policies. For supplies, this can be any supplies pertaining to your project. You'll list the individual purchases and then the associated amounts and whether they come from federal share or non-federal share.
The next category is contractual. If you're working with another entity and are either paying them through the grant or using their funds as match with your grant, you'll include them here. If you have a contractor or someone you're working with that will be in this category, please attach a scope of work in the appendix outlining their times, the monetary commitment. Anything pertaining to that partnership should be in that scope of work. And then lastly is the other category. The other category can be space rental. It can be stipends. This is where you'll put local travel if applicable for your project. And again, you'll indicate the exact other purchase or expense to your grant, and then whether it's federal or non-federal share.
And then for your indirect cost, this can also be seen as overhead or administrative cost. Some organizations may have a federally negotiated rate. If you do have one of those, you'll want to include a copy of that agreement about your federally-negotiated rate in your application. If you don't have a federally-negotiated rate, you can still capture the di minimis indirect, which is currently 15%. You'll include that in your budget under the federal share or as match if it's non-federal. And then, at the bottom, will be your running totals for both the federal share, the match, and then the overall total project cost for your project.
So when you're putting together your budget, use a template. I did forget to mention that you'll want to double check all of your formulas and to make sure that everything's correct. It's really easy for one formula to throw off a budget. So just ensure that any calculations in whatever spreadsheet you're using are correct. Follow the object class categories, which we talked about at the beginning of this training. Reference your OWP and your implementation plan just to make sure that you're covering all of your expenses that you anticipate. Include the correct amount for non-federal share. You have to meet that 25% calculation that we talked about earlier with your match to be eligible for ANA funding.
Okay, the next portion is the budget narrative. The expenditures listed in line and budget and budget narrative align with the implementation plan and OWP. So for this section, you'll want to provide a brief narrative summary for each expense showing how you got to those cost calculations in your line item budget. You'll also want to provide documentation of required commitment of non-federal share. So this is your match contribution. Really, you'll just walk through the formulas on how you got to these costs. Here's a really good example of what this can look like.
So when you do your budget narrative, and this can be attached to your line item budget, depending on the template you use, you'll go through every expense in your line item budget and provide a brief summary of how you got to those costs. One word of wisdom I'd like to give you is that when you're aligning it with your implementation plan and OWP, ensure that all of these costs were either referenced or aligned with the other elements in your application. A good example of this, if you're asking for a vehicle purchase and you didn't discuss a vehicle anywhere else in your application, that's going to raise some questions on the validity of your budget and if it really truly aligns, which could impact your scoring.

Up next

Video 16: Preparing your ANA Application

Preparing your ANA Application

Training episodes

Video 1: Overview of ANA and the Funding Opportunities

Video 2: Project Introduction

Video 3: Current Community Condition

Video 4: Project Goals

Video 5: Objectives

Video 6: Project Implementation Plan

Video 7: Community Based Strategy

Video 8: Population to be Served

Video 9: Outcomes

Video 10: Objective Work Plan

Video 11: Data Management Plan

Video 12: Staffing Plan

Video 13: Partnerships and Consultants

Video 14: Oversight Plan

Video 15: Line Item Budget and Budget Narrative

Video 16: Preparing your ANA Application

Video 17: Submitting the Application to ANA

Video 18: Conclusion

Video 15: Line Item Budget and Budget Narrative

Line Item Budget and Budget Narrative

Up next

Video 16: Preparing your ANA Application

Training episodes

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