Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund

Program Plan Awards and Best 

Practices

June 2022
| 2

About This Webinar

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is providing this webinar and other resources for 

informational purposes.

The descriptions provided in this document are non-exhaustive, do not describe all terms and 

conditions associated with the use of Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (Capital Projects Fund), 

and do not describe all of the eligible and ineligible uses that may apply to this funding. 

Any Capital Projects Fund funding received will be subject to the terms and conditions of the 

agreement entered into by Treasury and the respective recipients.
| 3

Agenda

SECTION 1: Welcoming Remarks

SECTION 2: Award Announcements

SECTION 3: Use of Funds -- Recap

SECTION 4: Best Practices

SECTION 5: Q&A
SECTION 1: Welcoming Remarks
SECTION 2: Award Announcement
| 6

First CPF Awards – Broadband Infrastructure 

Louisiana New Hampshire Virginia West Virginia

Award 

Amount $176.7M $50M $219.8M $136.3M

Locations

to Be 

Served

88,500

(estimated)

15,000

(estimated)

76,873 20,000

(estimated)

Use of 

Funds

LA will use 100% of CPF 

allocation for a competitive 

grant program to fund 

broadband infrastructure 

investments for locations 

without access to 25/3 

Mbps

NH will use ~40% of CPF 

allocation to fund a local internet 

service provider to reach the 

most rural parts of the state 

currently lacking adequate 

internet service

VA will use 100% of CPF 

allocation to fund seven 

projects already selected 

from V ’s established 

competitive grant program 

focused on serving locations 

without access to 25/3 Mbps

WV will use 100% of CPF 

allocation for three competitive 

grant programs that will focus 

on funding last mile 

connections for locations 

without access to 25/3 Mbps

Funding 

Impact

• CPF-funded GUMBO is 

one piece of a five-year 

plan that leverages other 

federal broadband funding 

to achieve statewide 

universal access

• CPF will serve ~25% of 

locations still lacking 

internet access in LA 

• Program criteria encourages 

the maximum number of 

locations to be served at the 

lowest cost, and prioritizes 

affiliation with local 

governments, non-profits, and 

co-ops

• CPF will serve ~50% of 

locations still lacking internet 

access in NH

• Once-in-a-generation 

ARPA funds will keep VA 

on track to achieve 

universal broadband 

access by 2024

• CPF will serve ~28% of 

locations still lacking 

internet access in VA 

• Funding designed to reach 

areas hardest to serve due 

to low population density, 

rurality

• CPF will serve ~10% of 

locations still lacking internet 

access in WV
| 7
SECTION 3: Use of Funds - Recap
| 9

Use of Funds

A key priority of the program is investments in broadband infrastructure and digital 

connectivity, but recipients have flexibility in selecting how they would like to deploy 

Capital Projects Fund grant funding to address critical needs identified within their 

communities.

Broadband 

Infrastructure Projects

Digital Connectivity 

Technology Projects

Multi-Purpose 

Community Facility 

Projects

Case-by-Case

Reviews

The Capital Projects Fund authorizes funding for projects that meet the following criteria: 

1. Invest in capital assets designed to directly enable work, education, and health monitoring.

2. Be designed to address a critical need that resulted from or was made apparent or exacerbated 

by the COVID-19 public health emergency.

3. Be designed to address a critical need of the community to be served by it.
| 10

Use of Funds

• Connectivity: Investments in capital assets to get people connected to the internet (i.e. 

broadband infrastructure projects or digital connectivity devices).

• Future-Proof: Design build standards for broadband infrastructure programs MUST be 100:100 

Mbps symmetrical unless impracticable; Fiber is encouraged.

‒ If impracticable then build 100:20 Mbps scalable to 100:100 symmetrical.

• Affordability: Subrecipients MUST participate in ACP where available.

‒ Subrecipients providing broadband services should provide a low-cost option so that families 

in need can afford the service.

• A Menu of Options: Encourage prioritization of broadband networks owned, operated by, or 

affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and co-operatives.

• Community Consultation, Engagement, and Feedback: Include information and/or data on how 

the funds will address critical needs of the communities to be served.

Program Funds need to focus on key requirements and encouragements: 

All Grant Plans and Program Plans must be submitted no later than 

September 24, 2022.
SECTION 4: Best Practices
| 12

Grant Plan Overview

• A Grant Plan provides an overview of the anticipated use(s) for funds and the amount per 

category.

• Grant Plans include the following:

– Executive summary

– Allocation Table 

– Program Plan(s)

• Funds will be made available on a rolling basis as Grant Plans and Program Plans approved.

• Recipients are permitted to submit additional documents to respond to questions. 

• CPF Recipients are responsible for ensuring all identification numbers provided are active 

throughout the entire CPF grant performance period

• Treasury reserves the right to publicly share information from a Recipient’s CPF Grant 

Application, Grant Plan, and Program Plan(s). 

States, territories, and freely associated states must complete a Grant Plan.

All Grant Plans and Program Plans must be submitted no later than 

September 24, 2022.
| 13

Program Plan(s) Summary

Program Plans

• Program Plans are generally 5-10 pages in length 

• Program Plans require the following:

– Use Code Questionnaire (1A, 1B, 1C, 2)

– Program Narrative

– Program Budget

– Pre-Award Cost Annex (if applicable)

• Program Plans do not have to be submitted all at once

• Recipients will have an opportunity to revise and resubmit portions of their Program Plan(s)

• Revised Program Plans will be submitted as a new document uploaded to the Portal. 

• Note that any additional information submitted by a Recipient related to the Program 

Plan will be treated as part of the Program Plan.
| 14

Best Practices & Tips - General

• Detailed timeline and milestones related to administering the program during the period of 

performance.

• Include an estimate of the number of locations (i.e., households, businesses, etc.) to be 

served by the CPF investment.

• Where applicable, provide the following to Treasury: Subgrant application announcement; 

subgrant application/RFP; subrecipient scoring rubrics; subaward grant agreement; and 

description of outreach to eligible applicants.

• If applicable, list all other federal and state funding streams used to supplement the 

proposed project(s).

• Make sure the requested amount of funding for a Program Plan is consistent across all 

submitted documents.

Tip: Describe the financial, managerial, and institutional capability by, for example, detailing 

previous experience managing similar grant program, increasing staff to oversee program, or 

partnering with outside organizations or agencies for program assistance.

Tip: Recipients are required to publish the description (e.g., make public in recipient’s program 

guidance, publish on recipient’s program website, etc.) of their process for considering 

affordability in their project selection process and must provide this information in their 

Program Plan.
| 15

Best Practices & Tips – Broadband Infrastructure Projects (1A)

Treasury requires Broadband Infrastructure Projects to meet or exceed speeds of 100/100 Mbps 

symmetrical unless impracticable. In cases where the impracticability justification will be used, the 

program must be designed to reliably meet or exceed 100/20 Mbps and be scalable to a minimum 

of 100 Mbps symmetrical in the future.

Tip: Recipients should develop a process to assess subrecipient project proposals that do not 

meet speeds of 100/100 Mbps symmetrical to determine whether it would in fact be 

impracticable to deliver the required speeds. Factors to consider may include excessive 

deployment costs per location or geographic barriers. Recipients must include specific data 

sources relied on to develop this process and provide a description of that process.

West Virginia

• Data: Extensive data gathering initiative to create Target Area Address Map

• Identification of challenges: Lack of ISPs, Low Population Density, Mountainous Topography

• Project evaluation: prioritize financially and technically feasible projects + network 

validation, field inspections and field verifications

• Applicants proposing DOCSIS networks required to detail ability to scale
| 16

Best Practices & Tips – Broadband Infrastructure Projects (1A)

Describe the process followed to address affordability in the project specifications 

and selection criteria.

Louisiana

• Community engagement: Public meetings in targeted communities indicates that residents feel as 

though broadband service packages are too expensive, with too few options.

• Application evaluation: GUMBO grant program scoring criteria gave additional points to applicants 

offering low-cost broadband service.

• Grant agreement: State will work with the awardee during the grant agreement period to offer more 

affordable options, or should the awardee refuse, remove the awardee from consideration.

• Grant agreements will also include reporting requirements and monitoring processes to certify 

compliance with established pricing structures.

Tip: Treasury encourages the use of data from surveys, community engagement, existing studies, or 

other data to determine affordable broadband service for the areas to be served. For example, 

recipients may cite pricing data, the characteristics of a basic service, latency, non-recurring costs, 

data caps, or whether the application of ACP will reduce the monthly fee to an amount less than the 

average monthly service fee for that community.
| 17

Best Practices & Tips – Broadband Infrastructure Projects (1A)

Provide details about the initial and ongoing (i.e., post project implementation) 

community engagement efforts. 

Virginia

• Community Involvement: The program is structured to engage communities by having 

local governments being the primary eligible applicants. 

• Project evaluation: Scoring criteria considers the involvement of local NGOs and 

community support organizations involved in the project, as well digital literacy and 

digital equity activities. 

• For example, successful applicants have engaged libraries in their project roll out 

plans to help residents understand the value of broadband and how to use 

connected devices.
| 18

Best Practices & Tips – Broadband Infrastructure Projects (1A)

Provide evidence of how critical need was assessed and 

determined-lack of access, affordability, reliability, or other. 

New Hampshire

• Critical Need-Access: NH Households lacking connection speeds that support 

multiple users being online simultaneously, or lacking connection at all, have been 

disproportionately impacted by the transition to a more remote lifestyle. NH plans 

to prioritize bringing service to these households, through infrastructure and more 

affordable, service offerings to support bridging the digital divide and mitigating 

risks of increased hardship, whether they be economic, education, or health 

related. 

Tip: List all relevant federal and state data used throughout the planning process. 
| 19

Best Practices & Tips

Digital Connectivity Technologies (1B)

• Proposed devices are for public distribution or made available in a public facility. 

• The Program Plan describes the types of digital devices and their uses.

• Recipient describes how the compliance and subrecipient monitoring described in the Program Plan will be conducted.

Tip: Ownership of CPF Digital Connectivity Technology devices must be retained by the recipient or subrecipient.

Multi-Purpose Community Facilities (1C)

• The MPCF has been designed to ensure investments funded using CPF funds will jointly and directly enable work, 

education, and health monitoring. 

• The Program Plan demonstrates that the proposed use will be operational by December 31, 2026. 

• The proposed MPCF must also provide services for at least five years after the completion of the project.

• Recipients should provide assurance that the operations and maintenance (O&M) costs necessary to operate the project 

past the CPF grant period of performance have been considered and a financial structure is in place to pay those costs.

• Note that CPF award funds may not be used for O&M costs. 

• The Program Plan provides assurance that the recipient or, if applicable, subrecipients retain ownership of the CPF 

investment. 

Tip: 1C Program Plans must demonstrate that the investment serves a community with a demonstrated community need 

and that the facility is publicly accessible to that community. 
SECTION 5: Q&A
Capital Projects Fund Webinar for States, Territories, and Freely Associated States | 21

Question 1

If proposing a subgrant program, when should a recipient 

(the state) provide the subgrant application 

announcement, subgrant application, RFP, subaward grant 

agreement, and any other relevant information to 

Treasury? 
Capital Projects Fund Webinar for States, Territories, and Freely Associated States | 22

Question 2

How can a recipient describe their institutional, managerial, 

and financial capability to properly manage and administer 

CPF funds? 
Capital Projects Fund Webinar for States, Territories, and Freely Associated States | 23

Question 3

What information should be included when providing 

timelines and milestones related to administering the 

program during the period of performance?
Capital Projects Fund Webinar for States, Territories, and Freely Associated States | 24

Question 4

How do you update or submit a revised Grant Plan, 

budget allocation table or Program Plan?
| 25

Thank you.

For More Information: 

Please visit Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund 

website treasury.gov/CPF

For Media Inquiries: 

Please contact the U.S. Treasury Press Office 

at (202) 622-2960

For General Inquiries:

Please email 

CapitalProjectsFund@treasury.gov or your 

Treasury point of contact.