SJI Receives Over $1 Million in Grant Applications for the 2nd Quarter

SJI received a total of $1,720,544 in grant applications for the 1st quarter of FY 2010. The amount requested was double the amount normally requested during a given quarter, and historically SJI receives the least amount of grant applications in 1st quarter of the fiscal year. For the 2nd quarter, SJI received $1,138,121 in new grant applications; marking the second quarter in a row that SJI has received over a million dollars in new grant requests.

There may be several reasons why grant applications have increased: 1) the state courts are dealing with severe budget constraints, and need financial assistance in order to conduct critical projects; 2) SJI increased the amount available for Technical Assistance (TA) and Curriculum Adaptation and Training (CAT) grants. TA Grants were increased from $30,000 to $50,000, and CAT Grants were increased from $20,000 to $30,000. This has provided more flexibility to the state courts to conduct larger projects; and 3) SJI has increased its visibility with the state courts through outreach, which combined with limited federal funds for the state courts in general, has led to an increase in applications.

The Board will meet on March 25, 2010, to make decisions on grant awards for the 2nd quarter. The results of this meeting will be available the following week.