FY 2019 NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP) | BJS 2019 15723

Opportunity Information: Apply for BJS 2019 15723

The FY 2019 NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP) is a U.S. Department of Justice funding opportunity run by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) that aims to strengthen the quality, completeness, and accessibility of records used by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The program is rooted in the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 (NIAA), enacted after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, where the perpetrator was able to buy firearms from a Federal Firearms Licensee because key disqualifying mental health information was not available to NICS at the time of the background checks. In practical terms, this grant program is designed to close gaps in the records that determine whether someone is legally prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms under federal or state law.

The central purpose of NARIP is records improvement. It supports efforts to ensure that disqualifying records, including prohibiting mental health adjudications and commitments as well as other prohibiting factors, are captured accurately, updated promptly, and made available in a way that NICS can use during a background check. By improving how these records are collected, digitized, and shared, the program seeks to prevent unlawful firearm transfers to prohibited individuals while also improving efficiency for lawful buyers. A major theme of the program is automation: modernizing and automating record systems can reduce manual backlogs, improve timeliness, and reduce delays that can occur when background checks depend on incomplete or hard-to-access information.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary competitive opportunity offered as a cooperative agreement, meaning the federal agency generally expects to have a more involved partnership role than in a standard formula grant. The funding activity category is listed as "Information and Statistics," reflecting BJS's mission and the program's emphasis on improving the data infrastructure that supports background checks. The opportunity is identified as Funding Opportunity Number BJS 2019 15723 and is tied to CFDA 16.813. The solicitation was created on April 23, 2019, with an original closing date of June 3, 2019.

In terms of scale, the solicitation anticipated up to 28 awards, with an award ceiling of $5,000,000 per award. Eligibility is indicated as "Others," with further clarification referenced in the solicitation's additional eligibility text, which typically signals that eligible entities may include certain state, local, territorial, or tribal governments or designated agencies and offices responsible for maintaining or transmitting relevant records, depending on the program rules. Overall, the opportunity focuses on helping jurisdictions improve the underlying record systems that feed NICS so that background checks work as intended: identifying prohibiting histories when they exist, and avoiding unnecessary delays when they do not.

• The Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics in the information and statistics sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "FY 2019 NICS Act Record Improvement Program (NARIP)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.813.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 23, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 03, 2019. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $5,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 28 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for BJS 2019 15723

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