PLA Digital Literacy Workshop Cohort

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A virtual space for recipients of the PLA Digital Literacy Incentive Workshop, supported by AT&T.
  • 1.  Budget Questions - Qualifying Expenditures with Incentive Funds

    Posted Jan 19, 2023 05:15 PM
    Edited by Alicia Ford Jan 19, 2023 05:15 PM

    Hello,

    While our library fulfilled our minimum number of workshops as well as learners by the December deadline, we are updating our budget spreadsheet to reflect all expenditures to date, as well as evaluating whether we still have funding left over for providing more digital literacy workshops between now and March 31.  My library director had some questions with the budget that I couldn't remember since our original informational/onboarding webinar was so long ago:

    • Are we allowed to budget some library staff time under the personnel category?  Although we had an external instructor teach the courses, I personally spent a significant chunk of time prior to each workshop offered assisting him with prep work - making copies of handouts, saving the materials to flash drives for learners to take with them to access later, set up and take down of  the library's meeting room and all laptops and presentation equipment, etc.   I also served as an assistant to the instructor throughout the classes as needed.

    • Since we had to enlist our IT person to set up laptops purchased with incentive funds before they were ready to use in the workshops (connecting to our network, adding antivirus and other software, etc.),  would that also be an allowable personnel expenditure?

    Just checking to make sure I'm on the right path of thinking these would be appropriate budget expenditures before we get close to March with submitting our final report and details on what expenditures we've made with the workshop.  Thanks!



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    Alicia Ford
    Assistant Director
    Coloma Public Library
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  • 2.  RE: Budget Questions - Qualifying Expenditures with Incentive Funds

    Posted Jan 20, 2023 11:47 AM
    Hi Alicia,
    I'm happy to say yes! All of these costs are directly related to facilitating the workshops and therefore are an appropriate use of funds.

    • Are we allowed to budget some library staff time under the personnel category?  Although we had an external instructor teach the courses, I personally spent a significant chunk of time prior to each workshop offered assisting him with prep work - making copies of handouts, saving the materials to flash drives for learners to take with them to access later, set up and take down of  the library's meeting room and all laptops and presentation equipment, etc.   I also served as an assistant to the instructor throughout the classes as needed. YES, this is an approved use of funds

    • Since we had to enlist our IT person to set up laptops purchased with incentive funds before they were ready to use in the workshops (connecting to our network, adding antivirus and other software, etc.),  would that also be an allowable personnel expenditure? YES, this is an approved use of funds

    MC



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    Mary-Clare Bietila
    Program Manager, Programming Initiatives
    American Library Association
    She/Her/Hers
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