Under normal circumstances, O'Brien might have gone into a panic wondering how he was going to feed five new mouths until the grant-givers got their act together. Instead, during a mid-May interview, O'Brien was worry-free and more than a little thankful that his school is one of 21 institutions participating in a special national project to streamline grant administration
Under the guidelines of this effort, the Federal Demonstration Project (FDP), O'Brien was permitted to simply carry forward some leftover funds from the previous year's grant to fill in the funding gap and put the students to work as soon as they arrived. In the past, O'Brien could have carried forward the funds only after formally requesting per-mission from ONR. And that "would have taken a minimum of six months to get...approved," he says.
Saving time, eliminating steps, slashing red tape-this is what the FDP is bent on accomplishing. The result ...
