You should not start incurring expenses for your grant before July 1 of your grant year, but we can make exceptions. Contact grant administrator, Tom Annese, at tomannesenef@gmail.com if you need to start earlier than that.

Your grant ends on June 30, 2025. That means you cannot incur any expenses for your project after that date. All requests for payments should be made by August 15, 2025.

Please pay special attention to your grant’s approved budget. Actual expenses should approximate the budget approved for your grant. If expenses exceed 10% of the approved budget for any budget line item (e.g. consultants or transportation), you must request and receive an amendment from the NEF grant administrator before requesting payment. The total amount received may not exceed the total grant awarded.

Submit all disbursement requests online through the NEF website. Your submission has been received when you receive a confirmation email. Please make sure you’ve received this confirmation.

1. Funds paid to Northampton Public School staff and teachers through the NPS business office.
2. Direct reimbursement to grantees and others working on the grant.
3. Direct payment to grant consultants.
4. Purchase requisition through the NPS business office for requests of $500+, bussing, or substitute teachers.
5. Direct payment to local, independently owned businesses.

All disbursement requests are made online using forms available on the NEF website.

Be sure to include the name of the project and the project ID# on each form.

1. Payments to staff and teachers

• We make these payment requests to the NPS Business office four times a year: in November, February, May, and August.
• Grantees submit a Personnel Disbursement form listing each individual to be paid and the number of hours they’ve worked.
• Hourly rate for teachers and staff is $35.
• Wages will be paid through employees’ regular paychecks and all deductions will be taken out.

Substitute Teachers: If you are making arrangements for the School Department to pay substitutes directly, submit an NPS Purchase Requisition form (PO form) with your disbursement request form.

2. Direct reimbursement

• Grantee submits a Non-Personnel Disbursement form along with receipts for purchases. (Receipts are uploaded to the form.) These can be supplies, travel costs (except NPS bus rental, see “Payment with a purchase requisition” below), services like printing, postage, etc.
• Include name of individual receiving the check and their address on the NEF form.
• Receipts can be scanned or you can send a photo. Please reduce the size of jpegs or pdfs so that you’re not submitting a huge file.

3. Direct payment to grant consultants

• Grantee submits a Non-Personnel Disbursement form, an invoice from the consultant, and a W-9.
• Include name of individual receiving the check and their address on the NEF form.
• Invoice should include name, date(s) of service, hours, rate, expenses and total cost.
• W-9s are available on our website.
• Please do not upload W-9s containing Social Security Numbers to the disbursement form or send them via email, since this is a significant security risk. Send them by U.S. mail to NEF at P.O. Box 44, Northampton, MA 01061, attn: Grant Administrator or contact Tom Annese at the email below to arrange a handoff. W-9s with Employer Identification Numbers (EIN) rather than SSNs are safe to upload or email, as EINs are public information.

          Consultants payment schedule:

• We can pay up to 25% of the consultant’s total fee before the grant work has started.
• We can pay up to 50% of the consultant’s total fee once half of the work hours are completed. (That is, if we paid 25% in advance or 25% before half is done, we would pay another 25% after half the work is done. Then we’d pay the final 50% when everything is complete.)
• We will consider exceptions to this policy on a case-by-case basis.

4. Payment with a purchase requisition

• For purchases of $500 or more, for buses (any amount), and for substitute teachers (any amount). This may include requests for smaller payments to multiple vendors as long as the total is above $500.
• Purchase must be from an NPS approved vendor. If it isn’t an approved vendor, NPS can set them up as one as long as they take purchase orders. (Many online vendors don’t, like Amazon.) To be set up as a vendor, they need to provide a tax ID for the business office.
• Grantee completes a NEF Non-Personnel Disbursement form and an NPS Purchase Requisition form signed by their supervisor (usually the principal) and submits it to NEF, along with purchasing information (a quote or completed order form). If requesting bussing for a field trip, include a Field Trip Bus Quote form.
• Please submit a separate NEF form for each Purchase Requisition form.
• NPS makes the purchase and arranges for delivery.

5. Direct payment to local businesses

• This is common with businesses like Paradise Copies, High Five Books, and Broadside.
• Check with grant administrator first to confirm whether the vendor is one we can work with in this way.
• Grantee submits a Non-Personnel Disbursement form and a quote or invoice from the vendor.
• NEF treasurer will pay the business directly.

Please try to consolidate Small Grant costs so that you send no more than three distribution request forms throughout the grant duration. Keep in mind that disbursements are made on a periodic basis, as all of our administrative work is done by volunteer board members. Allow 4–6 weeks for reimbursements to be received for all submissions, except submissions for school department employee wages.

Contact Grant Administrator Tom Annese at tomannesenef@gmail.com with any questions.