Letter

Page 3 – Single State Agency Director



Dear Single State Agency Director:

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) and Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) invite you to apply for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment (SAPT) Block Grant for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2007. Enclosed is a copy of the draft FY 2008 uniform application (0930-0080), which will serve as the application to the Secretary for the SAPT Block Grant, including (1) the Funding Agreements and Certifications; (2) the Annual Report; (3) the Intended Use (State) Plan; and (4) the treatment and prevention performance measures. SAMHSA has not received notification of approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) regarding the FY 2008 uniform application; therefore, a draft FY 2008 uniform application is being made available to the States and Jurisdictions in order to provide you with sufficient time to prepare the annual report and plan.

The draft FY 2008 uniform application is available electronically via the Web-Block Grant Application System (BGAS) (http://www.bgas.samhsa.gov/2008). A Microsoft Word version of the FY 2008 uniform application may be downloaded from either the Web-BGAS (http://www.bgas.samhsa.gov/ ) or CSAT’s Treatment Improvement Exchange (http://ww.tie.samhsa.gov/sapt2008.htm). On June [insert date] the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services submitted to OMB/OIRA its consolidated analysis and response to comments received from the National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors and the States as well as a supporting statement and a proposed FY 2008 uniform application. One June [insert date] OMB published a 30-day notice in the Federal Register and SAMHSA is awaiting notification from OMB/OIRA regarding approval of the FY 2008 uniform application. Upon receipt of such notification, the Web BGAS will affix the approval and expiration dates on the information collection forms and you will receive notification from SAMHSA regarding the final FY 2008 uniform application.

Please note that reporting requirements for the Tobacco Regulation for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant; Final Rule (0930-0222), Goal 8, Annual Synar Report (ASR) has been incorporated into the FY 2008 uniform application. A MS Word version of the FY 2008 Annual Synar Report can be downloaded from SAMHSA’s Web site http://prevention.samhsa.gov/tobacco/08report.aspx.

A copy of the authorizing legislation (42 U.S.C. 300x-21 et seq) and regulation (45 C.F.R. Part 96; 42 CFR Part 54) governing the SAPT Block Grant program is available on Web-BGAS under the Frequently Asked Questions section. The FY 2008 Justification of Estimates for Appropriations Committees (http://www.samhsa.gov/Budget/FY2008/index.aspx) includes a table of the State/Territory allotments for the FY 2008 SAPT Block Grant; however, FY 2008 appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and related agencies are pending.

Upon enactment of the FY 2008 appropriations for Labor-ED-HHS and related agencies, a final allotment table for FY 2008 SAPT Block Grant will be sent to you and posted on CSAT’s Treatment Improvement Exchange and Web-BGAS. In the interim, please use the FY 2008 SAPT Block Grant allocation as proposed in the President’s FY 2008 budget for purposes of completing the FY 2008 Intended Use (State) Plan (Form 11). A copy of the estimated FY 2008 SAPT Block Grant allocations and the identification of “designated States” can be found in the FY 2008 uniform application, Appendix A.

As you may recall, during the December 2-3, 2004 meeting with SAMHSA and representatives of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) and in subsequent dialogue regarding SAMHSA’s National Outcome Measures, SAMHSA and the States developed consensus that the FY 2008 application will be the first year in which submission of the performance measurement data is mandatory. Therefore, you are required to report on the prevention and treatment performance measures in Section IV of the uniform application, and to identify any data challenges you may encounter so we can target SAMHSA’s technical assistance resources to assist States with implementation of SAMHSA’s National Outcome Measures. In FY 2008 and subsequent fiscal years, SAMHSA will pre-populate the performance measures for substance abuse prevention and treatment utilizing data from SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) and Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS). States may choose to use the pre-populated data to fulfill their reporting requirements for all or some of these measures.

You may also contact your CSAP and CSAT State project officers for specific information regarding the National Outcome Measures.

CSAT and CSAP encourage you to utilize the Web-BGAS system to submit your FY 2008 uniform application to SAMHSA. Technical assistance regarding the use of the on-line application is available from the Web-BGAS Help Desk. Mr. Stuart Sheck of Information Management Consultants, Inc., (IMC), an independent Federal contractor, is available by telephone help desk (1-888-301-2427) and electronic mail ([email protected]).

The FY 2008 application must be received by SAMHSA’s Division of Grants Management not later than October 1 of the Federal fiscal year for which the Block Grant funding is being requested, in order to ensure that States receive their respective FY 2008 Notice of Block Grant Award as soon as possible after the beginning of the Federal fiscal year, and to comply with the requirements of the Cash Management Improvement Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-453) and 45 C.F.R. Part 205.

The contact person for questions related to SAPT Block Grant business management issues is:

Ms. LouEllen M. Rice

Grants Management Officer

Office of Program Services, Division of Grants Management

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

1 Choke Cherry Road, Room 7-1091

Rockville, Maryland 20857

TEL. (240) 276-1404

Please submit only the original signature copy (and 2 additional copies) of the Funding Agreements (Form 3), Assurances Non-Construction Programs, and Certifications. Forwarding any paperwork relating to the FY 2008 uniform application to any other addressee results in processing delays; however, in the event the State forwards the uniform application via express/overnight mail an alternate address is required. To ensure express/overnight mail delivery, please use the following address:

Ms. LouEllen M. Rice

Grants Management Officer

Office of Program Services, Division of Grants Management

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

1 Choke Cherry Road, 7-1091

Rockville, Maryland 20850

Telephone: (240) 276-1404

Questions of a fiscal or programmatic nature should be directed to your respective State project officer within CSAT=s Division of State and Community Assistance or CSAP=s Division of State Programs. A directory of the CSAT and CSAP project officers can be found in the FY 2008 uniform application, Appendix A.

Sincerely,

H. Westley Clark, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., CAS, FASAM

Director

Center for Substance Abuse Treatment

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Dennis O. Romero, M.A.

Acting Director

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Enclosure

SAMHSA:CSAT:DSCA:PPGB:JCampbell:06-05-07:c:\word\saptbg\bgas\2008\fy_2008_saptbg_solicitation_letter_final_06-05-2007.doc