Carryover Budget

A Carryover Budget Request is an amendment to the existing budget period. Its purpose is to incorporate the unspent balance from an earlier budget term. This supports unfinished activities from the year when the funds were initially allocated.

Who can request spending authority for a COB?

Request for Carryover Budget (COB): As a recipient of multi-year grants, you may carry over your budget for incomplete activities. Before submitting a request, please verify the available balance in your Payment Management System account is still available.  Take note, recipients should not have outstanding or delinquent reports.

• Reconciliation: Confirm the unobligated balance amount is correct by ensuring the draw-down and charged amount in PMS matches.
• Status of Reports: You should not have outstanding or delinquent financial-SF425 reports and Ongoing Progress Reports (OPR).
• Contact for questions: If you have any issues or questions, please get in touch with your OGM grants management specialist for financial reports or your program specialist for program reports (OPR).

When can you request a COB?

A COB request should be submitted as early as possible in the subsequent budget period once the incomplete/delayed activities in the OPR and the unobligated balance in the Annual SF425 (Federal Financial Report) have been identified. Un-obligated funds can only be carried over to complete activities or objectives that were not finished in the original budget period for which the funds were awarded.

What should be included in the COB request?

• A cover letter written on letterhead requesting the Carry-Over Budget. The Authorizing Official must sign the cover letter. This letter should include the following:
  • The exact dollar amount of the request (unobligated federal amount or less) from line h of the annual SF425 report
  • A detailed description of approved incomplete grant activities from the budget period corresponding to un-obligated funds
  • Status of Non-federal share contribution during the previous budget period — was it met or not?
    •  If you still need to meet the NFS and carry it over, please state the amount (from line K of the annual SF425 report).
    • If it was met during the previous budget period, please state that in the cover letter.
  • An explanation of why these activities were not completed
  • A specific plan for completing these activities in the current budget period. 
• A SF-424 including the COB request amount only. The COB request amount includes the unobligated federal carryover amount (from line h of the annual SF425) plus remaining Non-Federal Share amount (from line k of the annual SF425) that wasn’t met in the previous budget period. If NFS met, please put “0” on the form.
• A SF-424A which breaks down the COB amount per budget category. The SF-424A should also include the remaining Non-Federal Share (NFS) from the previous budget period. If NFS was met in the previous budget period, please include “0”.
• A line-item budget (See the template COB request for an example of the preferred format for the line-item budget) that includes the following:
  • A column with the current budget period’s approved federal budget, this includes the title and amount for each approved line item before carryover funds are added.
  • A column demonstrating the carryover request. This should identify the line item(s) where carryover funds will be added and the amount.
  • A column with the new federal request (current federal budget + carryover amount)
  • A column with the current budget’s remaining non-federal share (match)
  • A column demonstrating the carry over request for the non-federal share (match).
  • A column with the new non-federal share match (current match + carryover match amount)
    • If NFS match has been met in the previous budget period, please identify the COB amount as “0”.
  • A column for the total year budget (adding the all the lines across)
• A Budget Justification Narrative that justifies the increase to approved line items for COB amounts only.
• An updated Annual SF-425 that shows the un-obligated balance is equal to the amount that is being requested. This SF-425 should be marked Annual and will most likely be from the 4th quarter of the budget period that resulted in the carryover amount.
• A revised OWP that includes incomplete activities from the previous budget period along with revised expected completion dates assuming the COB is approved.

Additional Requirements:

• Ensure that the COB amount is still available in their Payment Management System (PMS) Account.
  • Semi-Annual and the Annual SF425 Report must be reconciled and submitted.
  • If unsure, contact your OGM Specialist.
• Identify the incomplete activities in the previous year’s OPR in OLDC and mark them “Delayed”.
• Indicate a new completion date, assuming the COB has been approved.

Where do I submit the COB request?

1.Complete all necessary documents and submit them electronically via Grantsolutions.gov , as a Carryover Request (Type 6) amendment.

• Documents can be uploaded to GrantSolutions as .pdf or other file types. 

2.The forms and certifications can be completed and submitted through GrantSolutions by the Authorizing Official or the Principal Investigator/Project Director.

Recipients may always contact their program specialist or TA provider to review their carryover budget before submission. This can sometimes speed up the process and reduce the need for revisions after it’s submitted.