OJJDP Will Fund 11 Family Treatment Courts With $9.02 Million. The 25 Percent Match Is an Eligibility Test, Not a Preference.

Most federal notices of funding opportunity describe cost sharing as a requirement and then handle a shortfall at the budget-negotiation stage. The OJJDP FY 2026 Family Treatment Court Program does not.

Its language is unusually blunt: "If your application does not include the required cost sharing, it will be deemed ineligible for funding."

That sentence moves the 25 percent match out of the scoring conversation and into the responsiveness screen — the same place as "is the applicant eligible" and "does the request exceed the ceiling." You do not lose points. You are not reviewed.

For a program awarding 11 grants from $9.02 million with a November 16 first deadline, that is the single most consequential sentence in the document.

The numbers, precisely

Do the multiplication on the award structure. Five Category 1 awards at the $850,000 ceiling is $4.25 million. Six Category 2 awards at the $750,000 ceiling is $4.5 million. That totals $8.75 million against $9.02 million available — roughly $270,000 of slack.

That is a tighter fit than most OJP programs, and it carries a specific implication: the ceilings here are close to realistic award sizes, not aspirational. On programs where the ceiling times the award count badly overshoots the total, you should assume downward negotiation. Here, a well-justified request at or near the ceiling is consistent with how the program intends to spend its money.

The match math nobody does until too late

The 25 percent is calculated on total project costs, not on the federal request. Federal funds may not cover more than 75 percent. That distinction changes the number materially, and it is the most common place applicants get it wrong.

A Category 1 applicant seeking the full $850,000 must document $283,333 in non-federal contribution — not $212,500, which is what 25 percent of the request would be. The error is a 33 percent understatement of the obligation, and on this NOFO an understated match is not a budget revision. It is a responsiveness failure.

The one piece of good news: the match may be satisfied with cash and/or in-kind contributions. For a court-based applicant, in-kind is usually where this gets solved. Judicial time devoted to the family treatment court docket, court coordinator salary already funded by the county, child welfare agency caseworker time committed to the FTC population, donated space for staffing meetings, treatment provider services delivered without charge to the grant — all of it is potentially countable, and all of it requires documentation and a valuation method, not an assertion.

Across 48 months, $283,333 works out to roughly $70,800 per year of documented in-kind or cash commitment. That is one part-time position, or a judge's partial FTE, in most jurisdictions. It is achievable. It is not achievable in the week before Thanksgiving.

Two deadlines, seven days apart, in Thanksgiving week

The two-step DOJ submission structure eliminates applicants every cycle, and this NOFO's calendar is unforgiving in a specific way.

Step 1 is the SF-424 in Grants.gov, due November 16, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET — a Monday.

Step 2 is the full application in JustGrants, due November 23, 2026 at 8:59 p.m. ET — the Monday of Thanksgiving week, at an hour that is not midnight.

Three traps live in that structure.

The SF-424 is a gate, not a formality. If you miss November 16, there is no step two. The full application window does not open for an applicant who did not submit the SF-424 on time, regardless of how complete the narrative is.

Seven days is the entire window to finish, not to start. Many applicants treat the Grants.gov deadline as the project's real deadline and the JustGrants submission as administrative cleanup. It is not. The JustGrants package carries the narrative, the budget with its documented match, the Standard Applicant Information, and — for anyone seeking priority consideration — a separate inventory form discussed below.

8:59 p.m. is a real time. The JustGrants convention is not midnight, and a submission attempted at 10 p.m. on November 23 is late by a little over an hour. Build to November 20.

There is also a registration clock that precedes both. The NOFO directs applicants to begin SAM.gov registration or renewal by October 16, 2026 and no later than October 30, 2026. If your entity's SAM registration has lapsed — common for courts and small units of local government that apply episodically — that is the deadline that actually governs your application, and it has already arrived.

Category 1 versus Category 2 is decided by a one-year line

The two categories are not funding tiers you choose based on ambition. They are determined by the operational status of your family treatment court, and the dividing line is one year.

Category 1 — Establishing New Family Treatment Courts is for jurisdictions ready to implement a new FTC. Eligible if no family treatment court currently exists, or one has been operational for less than one year. Importantly, the NOFO states that jurisdictions may already have other types of drug or treatment courts — an adult drug court or a mental health court does not disqualify you from Category 1. Five awards, up to $850,000.

Category 2 — Enhancing Family Treatment Courts requires a fully operational family treatment court that has been operational for at least one year. The money is for expanding parental substance use disorder treatment services in that existing court. Six awards, up to $750,000. OJJDP encourages partnering with community service providers.

If your FTC launched within the last twelve months, you are a Category 1 applicant — and that is the better place to be, because Category 1 has the higher ceiling ($850,000 versus $750,000) and fewer anticipated awards (5 versus 6), which is close to the same ratio of money to slots.

One more structural rule worth knowing: you may submit more than one application under Category 1 and Category 2 if each proposes a different project. A state court administrative office with distinct projects in distinct jurisdictions is not limited to one bite. But if a project will be carried out by two or more entities, only one entity may apply, and the others must be proposed as subrecipients rather than co-applicants. An entity may appear as a subrecipient in more than one application — which means a regional treatment provider can be written into several counties' proposals without conflict.

The program-design requirements that are not optional

This program is authorized under 34 U.S.C. §§ 10611–10619, and the statute imposes design constraints that are easy to read as certifications and are in fact operational requirements. Three deserve explicit attention during proposal design, not after award.

The violent offense exclusion carries a suspension trigger. Any court receiving these funds may not permit participation by any individual charged with or who has committed a violent offense, and the NOFO states that funding will be immediately suspended if DOJ determines such an individual is participating in any program funded under the opportunity. This is not a screening preference. It is a condition whose violation stops the money. Your proposal should describe the eligibility screening mechanism — who checks, against what record, at what point in referral — rather than asserting compliance.

Drug testing is mandatory and specified. Programs must require periodic drug testing that is accurate and practicable, with each participant tested for every controlled substance the participant has been known to abuse and any additional substance the court requires. The court must impose treatment adjustments, complementary service modifications, or therapeutic measures whenever a participant fails a drug test. A budget that does not carry a credible testing line is a budget that has not read the statute.

Participant fees are statutorily required but capped by a rehabilitation test. The authorizing statute requires participant payments for treatment and restitution. At the same time, recipients may not impose a fee at a level that would interfere with the participant's rehabilitation, and the NOFO directs applicants to include provisions in the application for determining whether costs would interfere with rehabilitation, recovery, or graduation. That is a sliding-scale and waiver policy you should write down, because the NOFO asks for it.

Beyond these, the program requires continuing judicial supervision, coordination with the appropriate state or local prosecutor and the applicable child welfare agency attorney, and a long-term strategy with a detailed implementation plan.

Priority consideration requires a separate form

OJP lists agency funding priorities for projects that directly support law enforcement operations (including immigration law enforcement), combat violent crime, support services to American citizens, protect American children, and support American victims of trafficking and sexual assault.

Layered on top, this NOFO offers additional priority consideration to applicants in states and units of local government that actively meet five criteria: enforcing prohibitions on open illicit drug use, urban camping and loitering, and urban squatting; enforcing or adopting standards addressing individuals who are a danger to themselves or others and suffer from serious mental illness or substance use disorder, including through assisted outpatient treatment or civil commitment; and, for state applicants, substantially implementing SORNA registration and notification obligations, including mapping and checking the location of homeless registrants.

The mechanical point: applicants seeking this additional priority must complete the Agency Funding Priorities Inventory – Ending Crime and Disorder in JustGrants. Describing the relevant local policies in your narrative does not claim the priority. A separate form does. And the NOFO is explicit that priority consideration is one of many factors and does not guarantee funding.

The unallowable-activity list is equally specific. Out of scope at any tier: any program or activity that directly or indirectly violates — or promotes or facilitates the violation of — federal immigration law, including failing to comply with 8 U.S.C. § 1373, denying access to DHS agents, or declining to honor DHS requests and notice; and any activity violating applicable federal civil rights or nondiscrimination law, including unlawfully favoring individuals in any race or protected group. Separately, funds may not support legal services for removable or unlawfully present aliens, with carve-outs for obtaining protection orders for crime victims and for immigration-related legal services expressly authorized or required by law or judicial ruling.

What to do this week

1. Confirm your SAM.gov registration is active today. The NOFO's own window for starting this has closed. If you are lapsed, this is the only thing that matters right now.
2. Decide your category by the one-year test, not by which ceiling you prefer.
3. Build the match before the narrative. Name the in-kind sources — judicial time, coordinator salary, caseworker commitment, donated treatment capacity — and establish a valuation method. Compute it on total project cost, not on the request.
4. Submit the SF-424 well before November 16. It is a gate with no second chance.
5. If you want priority consideration, open the Ending Crime and Disorder inventory in JustGrants early and find out what documentation it asks for.
6. Write the screening mechanism, the testing protocol, and the fee-waiver policy into the proposal. The statute requires all three, and reviewers for a court-based program know what they look like.

The first two steps are the ones that disqualify people. The last three are the ones that separate funded applications from scored-but-unfunded ones in a competition with eleven slots.

For related OJJDP activity this cycle, see Granted News on the agency's tribal children's advocacy center awards.