MPH 508 Week 5 Budget Justification Example

Budget Justification: A One-Year, $166,727 Request to Rebuild the Merritt County Closed Dispensing Network From 9 Sites to 30, Line by Line

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MPH 508: Leadership and Administration in Public Health Systems

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Budget Justification: A One-Year, $166,727 Request to Rebuild the Merritt County Closed Dispensing Network From 9 Sites to 30, Line by Line

Purpose and Period

This justification supports a request to the state's preparedness program for a one-year subaward, July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027, to rebuild the closed point of dispensing network of Merritt County's health department, which serves about 214,000 people. The goal is to raise the number of closed sites from 9, covering about 11,000 people, to 30, covering at least 45,000, and to have every site complete training and one exercise within the year. Each line below is tied to one of three activities: recruiting and re-engaging sites, training and exercising them, and supplying them. The total request is $166,727, of which $144,980 is direct cost and $21,747 is indirect cost.

Personnel

Personnel is the largest cost, because recruiting and keeping closed sites is relationship work done in person. Disaster planners interviewed about closed dispensing networks reported that recruitment required repeated contact and that sites drifted away without frequent communication and visits (Rebmann et al., 2021; Rebmann et al., 2022). Salaries are from the county's 2026 pay plan for each position's grade and step.

Preparedness coordinator, 0.40 full-time equivalent, $28,600. The coordinator's annual salary is $71,500. Forty percent of effort is charged because the coordinator will lead recruitment meetings with executives and boards, approve each site's plan and direct the year-end exercise. The remaining 60% stays on the existing cooperative agreement and is not charged here.

Closed dispensing planner, 1.00 full-time equivalent, $54,080. This is a new, one-year position at $26.00 an hour for 2,080 hours. The planner will carry out site visits, help each site write its plan, maintain the partner database and schedule training. Full effort is charged because the position exists only for this project.

Community health nurse, 0.10 full-time equivalent, $7,800. The nurse's annual salary is $78,000. Ten percent of effort covers delivering the two-hour dispensing and screening training to site staff at 30 sites, with preparation and follow-up.

Fringe benefits, $34,382. The county's fringe rate for full-time staff is 38% of salary, covering retirement, health insurance, Social Security and workers' compensation, applied to total salaries of $90,480.

Travel

Travel, $3,568, is built from trips rather than estimated. Local site visits: 30 sites, four visits each over the year (recruitment or re-engagement, plan review, training and exercise), at an average round trip of 32 miles, gives 3,840 miles at the county's 2026 reimbursement rate of $0.70 a mile, for $2,688. State training: two trips for the planner to the state's required preparedness trainings, each with 360 miles of travel at $0.70 a mile, one night of lodging at $120 and meals at $68, for $880.

Supplies

Supplies total $6,450. Closed site kits, $2,850: 30 kits at $95 each, containing a rolling tote, site signage, identification vests, clipboards and a printed job aid set, priced from the county's 2026 purchasing contract. Screening and dispensing forms, $3,000: 50,000 forms at $0.06 each from the county print shop, enough for one form for each person the network is meant to cover plus a reserve. Training materials, $600: printed participant guides for about 150 site staff at the county print shop's rate.

Contractual

Contractual costs total $8,900. Translation, $2,400: translation of the screening form, the medication information sheet and the site job aids into Spanish and Vietnamese, the two most common languages other than English among county residents with limited English, at a quoted rate from the county's language services vendor. Exercise evaluator, $6,500: an independent evaluator to design, observe and write the after-action report for a multi-site closed dispensing exercise in May 2027, at a fixed price from a quote obtained in March 2026. An outside evaluator is requested because past after-action reports written by the department repeated the same findings for three years without corrective action.

Other

Partner database subscription, $1,200: one year of a contact management service for tracking site contacts, agreement dates, training and exercise status, at the vendor's listed government price. The database addresses the main reason sites lapsed in 2024 and 2025: when a partner's contact left, no record showed who else at the site knew the agreement.

Indirect Costs

Indirect costs are $21,747, calculated at 15% of modified total direct costs of $144,980. The county does not have a negotiated indirect cost rate, so it elects the de minimis rate, which federal guidance raised to 15% for awards made on or after October 1, 2024 (Office of Management and Budget, 2024). No equipment, rent or participant support is included in the base.

Table 1

Budget Summary by Category

Note. Note. All figures are composite values for this course; salaries from the county's 2026 pay plan.

What the Budget Will Not Cover

The budget does not include the medication itself, which would come from federal and state stockpiles in an event. It does not pay partner organizations for their staff time, which they contribute voluntarily under their agreements. It does not cover staffing for the county's public dispensing sites, which remains on the existing cooperative agreement. And it does not include equipment such as computers, since the planner will use an existing county laptop. These exclusions are stated so that reviewers can see the request covers only the network's rebuilding, and so that the department does not promise partners support it cannot fund.

Sustainability

After the year, the coordinator will absorb maintenance of the 30 sites within existing cooperative agreement effort, with the partner database and annual visits as the main tools. The planner position is not expected to continue. The national capability standard treats the closed network as part of routine dispensing readiness (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018), so the department will request maintenance costs in future cooperative agreement budgets rather than further one-time funds.

Cost per Person Covered

If the network reaches 30 sites covering 45,000 people, the request adds about 34,000 people to closed dispensing at a one-year cost of about $4.90 for each person added. Each of those people would otherwise need a place in a public dispensing line in the first 48 hours.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018). Public health emergency preparedness and response capabilities: National standards for state, local, tribal, and territorial public health. https://www.cdc.gov/readiness/media/pdfs/CDC_PreparednesResponseCapabilities_October2018_Final_508.pdf

Office of Management and Budget. (2024). Guidance for federal financial assistance (Final rule, 89 FR 30046). https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200

Rebmann, T., Foerst, K., Charney, R. L., Mazzara, R. L., & Sandcork, J. (2022). Challenges in managing, sustaining, and assessing closed point of dispensing sites: Findings from a qualitative study. PLOS ONE, 17(7), e0271037. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271037

Rebmann, T., Foerst, K., Charney, R. L., Sandcork, J., & Mazzara, R. L. (2021). Approaches, successes, and challenges in recruiting closed points of dispensing sites: A qualitative study. Health Security, 19(3), 327-337. https://doi.org/10.1089/hs.2020.0219