NEW PAYMENT PROCESS FOR GRANTS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

Beginning in FY 2009, SJI contracted a significant portion of its financial processes to the General Services Administration (GSA). This includes payments for awarded grants and scholarships. SJI will no longer issue checks directly; rather, electronic fund transfers (EFTs) or hard checks will be issued directly from the U.S. Treasury.

The process for requesting reimbursement for grants and scholarships remains the same; however, SJI has recently updated some of its forms. For grants, a SJI Form R-Request for Advance or Reimbursement must be submitted to request awarded funds. The only change to this form is that the Employee Identification Number (EIN) also known as a "Tax ID" is required on the Form R. For scholarships, a SJI Form S3-Scholarship Payment Request/Financial Report must be submitted to request scholarship reimbursement. The only significant change to this form is that the individual who received the scholarship must include his/her Social Security number. Payments from the U.S. Treasury can only be made if an EIN or Social Security number are included on these forms. Failure to include these numbers will result in delays receiving payments.

GSA will be responsible for processing payments from the U.S. Treasury on behalf of SJI. SJI has an agreement in place that, once the proper documentation is received, GSA will process these payments within two weeks.

Current and future grantees and scholarship recipients can also choose to receive payments via EFT. This is a faster method of receiving payment from SJI. To participate in EFT, SJI will need a completed SF 3881-Automated Clearing House (ACH)/Miscellaneous Payment Enrollment Form.

Updated forms are available on the SJI website: http://www.sji.gov/forms.php. Please feel free to contact SJI if there are questions regarding this new payment process.