Politics & Government

Martins Explains Grant Restoration

Some of the grants have been restored and the State Senator is still working on the others.

Several grants in the Seventh Senate District for local fire districts, schools and other community groups worth about  were lost at the end of last year; approximately $4.7 million of those have been restored. To see a list of the restored grants, . Patch spoke with , R-Mineola, about what happened to these grants and what future grant seekers should know.

"The grants were pulled... so it was my job to go out there and remind people that these aren't new grants; these are commitments to people and many of these decisions had been made by the local communities with the assurances that the money would be there," Martins said.

In some cases, groups who thought they were receiving grants already spent that money and were looking to be reimbursed.

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"It was fair that they be restored," Martins emphasized. "We weren't able to restore every grant. We're still working."

One such grant that has not been restored yet due to its complicated structure is the New Hyde Park PAL's.

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"I believe it's $200,000," Martins explained. "It was to address some issues at the PAL house and it is not forgotten...Unfortunately it was part of a larger grant and so being part of that larger grant, it was mixed in with other things which made it very difficult to parse out... I feel confident that we will be successful, but given the way the grant was structured, it just made it a little more difficult to get it restored."

Other grants faced different issues, for instance, the grants for the and had not been revoked, Martins said.

"They required waivers," Martins said of these two grants. "There's a requirement that these types of grants be at least $250,000; if they're less than $250,000, you have to get a waiver... And so the money was never actually there, it wasn't revoked, it wasn't pulled, but a requirement for the money to be funded was that a waiver had to be in place... We were able to restore the waivers for a number of different grants, including the Garden City Park and New Hyde Park fire departments which will clear the way for the grants to continue being processed."

All of the groups who have had their grants restored have been or will be notified about their grant soon, Martins said.

"I want to make sure that all of the paperwork is in order prior to announcing that they have been fully restored," he said. "We now have written confirmation that the resolutions have passed."

Grants that had waiver issues will also get a notice that those waivers were granted.

"Those should be resolved fairly quickly," Martins added.

For groups who might try to get a grant, though the economy is not in great shape, Martins anticipates that more grants will be coming once the state of the economy improves.

Though some of these grants are reimbursement grants where a group needs to pay for something first, Martins advising that groups know that they have the grant before spending the money.

"Probably the better approach is when you get a grant, don't spend the money until you know that the money is there because otherwise you may pay out of pocket," he said.

If anyone needs clarification about the state of their grant, the Senator's office is available to answer those questions.

"It was great to have been able to get them restored, but the reality is they should have never been withdrawn to begin with," Martins said.


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