Four steps to being granted federal money

By Amber Phillips

Sunday, Jan. 18, 2015 | 2 a.m.

After five years of being too poor to hire a police officer, the cash-strapped city of North Las Vegas found out in October it won $1.6 million from the federal government to hire 13 new recruits.

The money came from a competitive U.S. Justice Department grant that North Las Vegas secured with help from Sen. Harry Reid and then-Rep. Steven Horsford. Their staffs navigated the complex world of federal grants, writing letters, monitoring the months-long process and coordinating the application between state, federal and local agencies.

The process wasn’t always that hard. Before Congress banned earmarks in 2010, Reid and other lawmakers simply inserted language into spending bills to help groups and agencies in their districts. Now, members of Congress must rely on grants to bolster police departments, promote research at universities, pave roads and fix potholes.

Here’s how the process works.

Step one: Find available grants

There’s a clunky federal website, grants.gov, that lists all available federal grants. Reid’s office keeps an eye on it to find opportunities that could solve problems in Nevada. Every few weeks, his staff sends a list to constituents. Recently posted opportunities include up to $400,000 from the Bureau of Land Management for archeological projects in Lincoln County and $130,000 from the Department of Transportation to promote driver safety on highways.

Constituents and agencies also can call lawmakers and ask for help with grants they found on their own.

Step two: Make sure it’s the right fit

Grants are competitive. The Department of Transportation, for example, issues about $500 million annually to improve roads, but officials wade through $10 billion worth of applicants to fund the $500 million. (Rep. Dina Titus announced in September that Las Vegas received $13 million from the program to improve 14 miles of Flamingo Road.)

Nevada lawmakers tend to focus on well-organized applications that can show projects are ready to break ground.

Step three: Write a letter of support

Lawmakers typically have staffers who can help guide Nevadans through the grant application process. Nevada’s federal lawmakers also draft letters in support of projects.

Politics isn’t supposed to play a role in grant applications, but it never hurts having a member of Congress lobby for your project.

Step four: Wait

The grant-approval process can take six months to a year.

What happened to earmarks?

Since 2009, Sen. Harry Reid’s office estimates Nevada has averaged $253 million a year in federal grant money. That’s a big number for a small state but little more than half the amount the state received in earmarks, which totaled an average of $463 million annually.

In 2010, Republicans took control of the House of Representatives and promised to end earmarks in the name of transparency. President Barack Obama supported the measure, but then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid only reluctantly agreed.

Reid has since called for earmarks to be reinstated, arguing he can make better decisions for Nevada than “bureaucrats downtown.”