Read from the FY 2025-26 Proposition 4 guidelines. The shape should hold for the next round, but confirm against the new guidelines when they publish.
Due at application
A mapping submission, and this one disqualifies. Separately from the grants portal, every applicant must file in the WP Grants Mapping Center. Planning and education projects submit a geopoint. Hazardous fuels projects must also submit treatment area polygons, and the guidelines state that a fuels application without them will not be accepted. The District has no GIS capability of its own, so decide early who draws the polygons.
A letter of commitment from every partner, not only from a conservation corps. Any project using partners must show the partner was contacted, has the resources to commit, and supports the project.
A board resolution naming the signing representative. If it names a person rather than a position, a replacement requires a new resolution. Name the position.
Also the scope of work, budget, letters of support, and the standard state forms. Applications from one entity covering similar or adjacent geography should be consolidated into one.
Not due at application
CEQA compliance is a funded post-award deliverable. Compliance must begin immediately after grant execution and be documented within 12 months. The application needs an explanation of how compliance will be met, with the cost carried in the budget. The teeth are elsewhere: no grant funds, including an advance, may be spent on any activity that could affect the environment, ground disturbance included, until CAL FIRE issues written environmental compliance approval. CEQA gates the first invoice, not the filing.
A Registered Professional Forester is probably not needed at all, and is explicitly not needed at the application stage even where it is. The requirement attaches to fuel projects on a forested landscape as defined in Public Resources Code section 754, meaning tree-dominated landscapes. Chaparral and grass are not that.