General rules

Certified Local Government (CLG) Grants are reimbursable grants. Project work cannot begin until a grant agreement has been executed. Additionally, a municipality will have to carry the cost of the grant until the project is completed and the grant product has been accepted by our office.

The process is as follows:

1. The recipient must apply for the grant at the beginning of the annual grant round, then be selected by the evaluators to have their grant awarded for that round.
2. Then, they must have a signed and executed grant agreement with the State of New Jersey.
3. The recipient can now begin project work but must pay for all costs up-front. All work and invoicing must fall within the working period of the grant agreement to be reimbursable.
4. Upon completion of the project and acceptance of the grant product from our office, the state reimburses grant funds for up to 60% to 100% of the total costs. There is currently no matching requirement for HPF-funded CLG grants.

Electronic grant administration

All CLG grants are administered through NJDEP’s online grant system — SAGE, or System for Administering Grants Electronically. All phases of the grant project, from award to closeout, are done through the SAGE system.

Multi-year projects

Multi-year projects require applying for separate grants in successive years, then performing the work in phases. Applicants are not guaranteed funding for all phases. Each year’s grant application will be judged on its merits in competition with other qualified, competing applications.

Partial reimbursement

The Department of Environmental Protection reserves the right to award grants lower than the total of the submitted proposal. For example, a grant application for the survey of 300 properties may only be awarded the monetary equivalent of 200 properties.