1. (a) The Department, acting by and through its Executive Director or his/her designee, may authorize, execute, and deliver amendments to any written Agreement or contract provided that the requirements of this section are met.
2. (b) Time extensions. The Director or his/her designee may grant up to a cumulative twelve (12) months extension to the end date of any contract unless otherwise indicated in the Program Rules. Any additional time extension granted by the Director shall include a statement by the Director identifying the unusual, non-foreseeable or extenuating circumstances justifying the extension. If more than a cumulative twelve (12) months of extension is requested and the Department determines there are no unusual, non-foreseeable, or extenuating circumstances, it will be presented to the Board for approval, approval with modifications, or denial of the requested extension.
3. (c) Award or Contract Reductions. The Department may decrease an award for any good cause including but not limited to the request of the Administrator, insufficient eligible costs to support the award, or failure to meet deadlines or benchmarks.
4. (d) Changes in beneficiaries. Reductions in contractual deliverables and beneficiaries shall require a contract amendment. Increases in contractual deliverables and beneficiaries that do not shift funds, or cumulatively shift less than 10 percent of total award or contract funds, shall be completed through a contract modification.

5. (e) Award and Contract Increases.

   1. (1) Up to a cumulative 25 percent or $50,000 (whichever is greater) increase in specific single family program's contract may be added to the funding originally awarded by the Department.
   2. (2) Requests for increases in funding will be evaluated by the Department on a first-come, first-served basis to assess the capacity to manage additional funding, the demonstrated need for additional funding and the ability to expend the increase in funding within the contract period.
   3. (3) The requirements to approve an increase in funding shall include, at a minimum, Administrator's ability to continue to meet existing deadlines, benchmarks and reporting requirements.
   4. (4) Funding may come from program funds, deobligated funds or program income.
   5. (5) Qualifying requests will be recommended to the Executive Director for approval.
   6. (6) The Board must approve requests in excess of the cumulative 25 percent or $50,000 threshold.
6. (f) The Executive Director may approve contract budget changes or amendments that do not significantly decrease the benefits to be received by the Department.

7. (g) The single family program's Director may approve contract budget modifications provided the guidelines described in paragraphs (1) - (4) of this subsection are met:

   1. (1) funds must be available in a budget line item;
   2. (2) the budget change(s) are less than 10 percent of the total Activity budget;
   3. (3) if units or activities are desired to be increased, but funds must be shifted from another budget line item in which units or activities from that budget line item have been completed, a contract amendment will only be necessary if the cumulative budget changes exceed 10 percent of the contract amount; and
   4. (4) the cumulative total of all contract budget modifications cannot exceed 10 percent of the total contract's budget amount.
   5. (5) If these guidelines are not met, a contract amendment will be required.
8. (h) The Department may terminate a contract in whole or in part if the Administrator does not achieve performance benchmarks as outlined in the Contract or NOFA.
9. (i) In all instances noted in this section, where an expected loan transaction is involved, loan instruments will be modified accordingly at the expense of the Administrator/borrower.

Source Note:The provisions of this §20.14 adopted to be effective November 1, 2012, 37 TexReg 8470.