ASSOCIATION OF INDIANA CONSERVANCY DISTRICTS

The Indiana CDBG Handbook and forms have been revised and are posted on the OCRA website (www.ocra.in.gov).  The forms have been converted to Word documents so that they are easier to work with.  New grant administration forms on posted on the website are effective January 16^th.

Also note that the Income Survey Booklet and Income Survey Forms in English and Spanish have been revised and are now posted on the CDBG website under CDBG Resources, just below the CDBG Handbook.  The Income survey manual forms effective immediately.  If they have already started a mail or door to door survey with old forms they need to notify OCRA’s Grant Support at 800-824-2476.

THE GATEWAY

Gateway is a website which allows local government units to submit forms to certain State agencies online. Once fully developed, local units can submit budget forms to the Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF) and annual reports to the State Board of Accounts (SBOA). Gateway is being developed as a collaborative project among the DLGF, SBOA, and the Indiana Business Research Center at the Kelley School of Business. 

The information collected through Gateway will be placed in a modern, statewide database. With information in this modern format, it becomes easy to generate numerous reports: specialized reports for trade organizations, taxpayer-friendly reports placed online, and more.

During the fall of 2010, the DLGF conducted a pilot program in seven counties to get feedback on Gateway. Pilot volunteers were surveyed, and overwhelmingly agreed that it was easy to log into and navigate the website, that the training sessions and resource materials were helpful, and that they received good personal assistance throughout the pilot. Further, 100 percent of survey respondents had successfully submitted forms through Gateway. The DLGF has analyzed the data from these online submissions and verified that data is transferring through the website accurately.

With a successful pilot, we are now moving forward with full rollout of online budget submission for pay-2012 budgets. All unit types statewide except for schools will be submitting budgets through the website in the fall of 2011. (Schools will submit budget forms through the website beginning pay-2013.) We currently are upgrading the website to include all budget forms and to implement a direct upload option for units that already have their own electronic financial software. We will be unveiling the upgraded website this summer but will begin offering preliminary training well in advance of that rollout.

Live website: https://www.stats.indiana.edu/govtGateway/

Demo website: http://www.stats.indiana.edu/gatewaydemo/