Grants Blog

Archive for May, 2009

The Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday released the annual Circular A-133 Compliance Supplement, offering auditors and federal assistance recipients an updated resource for meeting their responsibilities under an A-133 audit. However, because of the “limited time” between enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the issuance of the 2009 supplement, the guidance does not fully incorporate the requirements resulting from the massive economic stimulus package. Instead, OMB has included a brief appendix (Appendix 7) that highlights some areas of importance to A-133 audits, such as the impact on determining major programs, reporting on the Schedule of Expenditure of Federal Awards, and award terms and conditions and related compliance requirements.

As additional information becomes available, OMB plans to issue addenda to the supplement.

A link to the online Compliance Supplement Table of Contents is available by clicking here.

If you’re interested in learning more about A-133 audits, check out Management Concepts’ Audit of Federal Grants and Cooperative Agreements course.

In his 2010 budget proposal released this week, President Obama sketched a broad outline of the steps he plans to take in an effort to “fundamentally reconfigure” how the federal government assesses program performance.

One of the six cornerstones of the administration’s plan for improved government management and performance is replacing the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) with a new “performance improvement and analysis framework.”

Instead of grading individual programs as “successful” or “unsuccessful” Obama plans to ask agency leaders to set priority goals, demonstrate progress in achieving goals, and explain performance trends. As a first step,  over the next few months each major agency will identify a limited set of high-priority goals that will guide meetings with cabinet officers. In his budget, Obama also said he wants to streamline reporting requirements under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).

To read the text of the budget proposal relating to government management, click here.

Management Concepts’ Accountability for Federal Grants course offers more insight into this topic, helping you apply performance-based principles to grants projects.  To learn more, click here.

As the General Services Administration promised, the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance website is now back – with a new look. Although much of the information that was posted on the previous site is still available, there are some new enhancements.

For example, at www.cfda.gov you can now find an entire section devoted to programs funded under the Recovery Act, as well as an enhanced search tool. You can also access links to resources such as a print version of the 2008 catalog, Grants.gov, an overview of the CFDA, and tips for writing grant proposals.