(a) Applicants shall be selected for funding on a competitive basis.

(b) An application must meet the requirements of the RFA and be submitted with proper authorization on or before the day and time specified by the RFA to qualify for further consideration.

(c) The selection process includes an application review and staff recommendation for funding. Board staff shall review applications to determine if they adhere to the grant program requirements and the funding priorities contained in the RFA. Board staff may select qualified individuals to serve as external reviewers. Reviewers shall demonstrate appropriate credentials to evaluate grant applications in autism treatment, training, and research. Reviewers shall not evaluate any applications for which they have a potential conflict of interest.

(d) The reviewers shall evaluate each entity's application for selection according to these criteria:

(1) How the applicant would achieve one or more of the following goals: (A) increasing the number of parents trained in parent-directed treatment; (B) increasing the number of teachers and/or paraprofessionals receiving Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) Training; or (C) researching, developing, and evaluating innovative autism treatment models.

(2) Detailed explanation of the applicant's autism treatment, training, or research program, rationale (including the evidence base) for the program, timeline for development and implementation, description of target population (including the applicant's strategies to recruit and serve diverse populations), description of budget, and detailed information related to administration and support for the program; and

(3) Applicant's evaluation plan to determine the effectiveness of its proposed project;

(e) Award criteria may be adjusted by Board staff to best fulfill the purpose of an individual grant competition, if those adjusted award criteria are included in the Request for Applications for the grant competition.

Source Note: The provisions of this §6.216 adopted to be effective June 6, 2016, 41 TexReg 3998