Fallowing helps speed up the conservation process. But it may drive up the price of crop land for farmers renting fields, Garber said.
IID established two different funds, non-competitive and competitive. The noncompetitive is $4.1 million, while the competitive grant is $2.2 million and will be allocated among 20 Valley applicants. Grants are awarded on the basis of grades. They were assessed by a three-member panel independent of the IID board, who are all experienced grant proposal readers, Garber said.
The main objective applicants must achieve is show through their request for proposal (RFP) they can verify the negative impacts of IID fallowing. That is difficult to quantify, Garber said.
Additional milestones include verifying they provide economic stimulus to a broad sector of regional business, strengthen overall economy, increases employment, competitiveness, infrastructure funding and employment prospects.
Applicants must also have matching funds and establish separate bookkeeping records open to IID audits.
Each applicant is allowed up to $400,000. But requests from the top seven scoring applicants would exhaust total funds. Just how the $2.2 million is allocated is undetermined, Garber said.
Some proposals could be partially awarded, which enlarges the pool of recipients. But some proposal approvals rely on receiving other grants and must be fully funded or not at all, Garber said.
The current top applicant, Imperial County Office of Education, received an 89.67 score. The IID board bases its selection on high scores but it has leeway in selecting, Garber said.
“We’re concerned we’ll get a worthy applicant with broad bearing but they haven’t got solid budget or milestone details,” Garber said.
Grants could be disbursed this spring but not before an appeals process is completed, Garber said.
Staff Writer William Roller can be reached at 760-337-3435 or wroller@ivpressonline.com
