VA will use the following process to select grantees applying for renewal of legal services grants:

(a) So long as the grantee continues to meet the threshold requirements set forth in § 79.30, VA will score the grantee using the scoring criteria set forth in § 79.45.

(b) VA will rank those grantees who receive at least the minimum amount of total points and points per category set forth in the NOFO. The grantees will be ranked in order from highest to lowest scores.

(c) VA will use the grantee's ranking as the basis for selection for funding. VA will fund the highest-ranked grantees for which funding is available.

(d) At its discretion, VA may award any non-renewed funds to an applicant or existing grantee. If VA chooses to award non-renewed funds to an applicant or existing grantee, funds will be awarded as follows:

(1) VA will first offer to award the non-renewed funds to the applicant or grantee with the highest grant score under the relevant NOFO that applies for, or is awarded a renewal grant in, the same community as, or a proximate community to, the affected community. Such applicant or grantee must have the capacity and agree to provide prompt services to the affected community. For the purposes of this section, the relevant NOFO is the most recently published NOFO which covers the geographic area that includes the affected community, or for multi-year grant awards, the NOFO for which the grantee, who is offered the additional funds, received the multi-year award.

(2) If the first such applicant or grantee offered the non-renewed funds refuses the funds, VA will offer to award the funds to the next highest-ranked such applicant or grantee, per the criteria in paragraph (d)(1) of this section, and continue on in rank order until the non-renewed funds are awarded.

(e) If a grantee would have been selected but for a procedural error committed by VA, VA may select that grantee for funding when sufficient funds become available if there is no material change in the information that would have resulted in the grantee's selection. A new application would not be required.