New Changes for Nonprofits with County Contracts-Critical Updates from NM’s Advisory Board to DHHS

Nonprofit Montgomery regularly convenes a Nonprofit Advisory Board to meet with the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to discuss concerns for the nonprofit community. These conversations provide the opportunity for two-way dialogue and for DHHS to address procedure and policies that can impact the nonprofit community. After the most recent meeting, DHHS has provided the following updates on two issues: “rounding pennies” and single user accounts.

1. “Rounding Pennies”
There has been an issue for some time with rounding errors in budges when items such as fringe and indirect rates are calculated in the budget spreadsheets. There have been instances of budgets going back and forth several times before minor errors such as budgets being off by a few pennies are resolved.

In order to reduce the back and forth over budgets, and in agreement with the Office of Procurement,DHHS will not send budgets back to organizations for correction over rounding errors. As long as the bottom line, total value is correct to the penny and matches the amount listed in the contract or contract action, the budget will be processed as is. DHHS hopes to reduce the confusion and delays in processing contracts and contract amendments.

Nonprofit organizations should ensure they receive the bottom line total for the budget from their contract monitor so they know the exact value they need to match at the bottom line.

2. Single User Accounts – Credit Card Payments
Many of you may be receiving phone calls from JP Morgan-Chase saying that you are required to participate in the accounts payable initiative that uses a Single Use Account (SUA) credit card for payments. Acceptance of payments via credit card is included in the County’s General Terms and Conditions attached to all contracts in Section 25 – Payments.

DHHS has confirmed with the Department of Finance and with the Office of Procurement that participation in the SUA program is not mandatory for nonprofits. Nonprofit organizations may participate if they so choose, but they should be aware that they will be charged a 3-4% fee. Organizations that do not want to participate in the SUA program can tell JP Morgan-Chase that as a nonprofit, they do not want to receive payments through this program. JP Morgan-Chase should accept this answer and should not apply pressure for the organization to participate.

Click here to read the full update on these two changes.