The application period for the fiscal year 2011 Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant program opened yesterday. The SAFER program provides local fire departments with funding to increase their staffing and emergency-related deployment capabilities, which allows communities to have sufficient protection from fire and fire hazards.

This time of year can be rough for a lot of people. First, there’s the post-holiday slump – the physical and emotional crash from a flurry of activities and interactions that can range from joyous and energizing to uncomfortable and draining. Whether the time off and goings-on of the holidays is wonderful or awful, it can be hard to get back into the swing of the everyday routine. Add on some long, gray days and schizophrenic weather patterns – It’s 50 degrees and feels like an early spring! No, wait! It’s in the single digits with a bone-chilling wind! – and it can be enough to make a person want to hunker down and hibernate.

(The Roundup Reel features some of the recent funding-related developments that you may have missed.) Late January means that we're back to our regularly scheduled program for the federal funding process. Both chambers of Congress are back from the winter recess and are taking up a heavy slate of unfinished and/or critical funding-related business. For example, House and Senate leadership are close to finalizing language that should allow a reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration to move forward – and just in time, as the current extension will expire at the end of the month. The Senate Finance Committee will also soon take up part of the surface transportation bill to address gaps in the Highway Trust Fund.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Single Audit Information Service.) The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration plans to increase the frequency of its Medicaid cost report audits of health care facilities after the state’s Office of Auditor General determined that audits should be conducted more often to prevent potential improper payments and fraud.

How many grantees out there can honestly say they’ve read their grant terms and conditions cover to cover? Now, what about the federal grant administrative and cost principle circulars? Do you know everything they require? Do you even know who at your grantor agency to contact with questions?

(This post is excerpted from an article in Thompson’s Local/State Funding Report. Subscribers can find the rest of the story in the Jan. 23 issue.) Earlier this month, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced 13 awards totaling $3.6 million through its Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants program.

(This post originally appeared on Title I-Derland, Thompson’s blog on federal K-12 education, and was written by Chuck Edwards, senior executive director for Thompson’s education products.) Columnist George Will Sunday highlighted an oft-overlooked challenge to the “quid pro quo” theory behind state grants-in-aid. This challenge is an incidental part of the suit against the Obama administration’s health care law that will be argued before the Supreme Court in late March.

The National Endowment for the Arts recently expanded its “Arts in Radio and Television” category to “Arts in Media,” and is about to conclude the review process for its latest grant competition under the revised category.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the February Federal Grants Management Handbook.) To better oversee the management of its grant programs, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to enhance its grants management policy manual and set grants management goals and objectives as recommended by the Government Accountability Office.

As I noted in an earlier post, one of our favorite things to do as a family is to order pizza, rent a DVD and have movie night at home. This weekend, we watched one my favorite films when I was younger — Back to the Future. Although my kids were on the edge of their seats near the end fretting to see if Marty would actually make it back to 1985, they seemed to enjoy the movie as much as I did (despite having to explain a few outdated 80s references).