19- 499 C.M.R. ch. 302, § 4
By January 15 of each year, the Department shall submit a report to the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over business research and economic development matters. The report must include the following:
An accounting of the use of all program funds received and expended since the program's inception; A summary of the status of any approved projects; A summary of the results of any completed projects; Evaluation data and assessment; and Other information required to be submitted to and evaluated by the joint standing committee of the Legislature having jurisdiction over business research and economic development matters.Community-based organizations receiving grants under this program shall report to the Department no later than November 15 of each year. In reporting to the Department, grant recipients must include the following organizational performance and client outcome measures for their programs:
An accounting of the use of all program funds received and expended; Total number of clients that received assistance broken down by technical assistance versus training; Business plan and/or training completion rate for all clients; Total number of clients that received ten (10) or more hours of assistance; Total number of women clients; Total number of minority clients; Total number of low-income clients (based on U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development guidelines); Total number of clients who were receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash support at the time of their intake into the program; Total number of clients served in targeted geographic area; Cost per assisted client; Businesses and jobs created, expanded or retained by clients; Change in annual sales revenues of clients that received assistance; Microloans disbursed to clients and other capital (i.e. debt or equity) acquired by clients.Note: The above measures build upon similar measures employed by MicroTest, a program developed and administered by the Aspen Institute. MicroTest seeks to "improve the quality of microenterprise services and the stability of microenterprise organizations over time by promoting the use of common measures to regularly assess performance." In using MicroTest measures, the department hopes to measure the performance of Maine microenterprise programs against national benchmarks for similar programs.
Grant recipients under this program must also be prepared to provide the department or its contractor with additional program data, including client contact information, so that the department may conduct an independent evaluation of the program.
19- 499 C.M.R. ch. 302, § 4