Grants Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Oversight’

Well, as most of the nation’s capital braced last week for a weekend blizzard, the Office of Management and Budget was busy releasing new guidance on the Recovery Act reporting requirements.

The memo released late Friday afternoon targets three areas: steps that federal awarding agencies must take to ensure the quality of data being reported by Recovery Act recipients; how federal agencies are to deal with recipients who have not reported or who have persistent reporting problems; and how recipients are to calculate and report the number of jobs created or saved with Recovery Act dollars.

For example, federal agencies are now required to provide recipients with a specific list of data about their awards, such as award type, amount, award number, CFDA number, federal agency number, and TAS (Treasury Account Symbol) code. OMB also offers guidance on how agencies are to assess late and non-reporters, and how to submit that list, which will be published on Recovery.gov.

The interesting aspect of the guidance for recipients is that OMB has offered detailed, step-by-step instructions and examples for calculating jobs. Further, recipients are no longer required to report cumulative jobs data, but rather simply job information for the reporting period. 

You can view the new memo here.

On a new website, Partner4Solutions, the federal government is asking state and local governments for ideas on reducing improper federal payments.

The website and request for input are part of the Obama administration’s efforts to reduce the estimated $98 billion in improper payments made in fiscal 2009.

“We know that states and local governments are already addressing these issues head-on and have identified many innovative approaches. We see this as an opportunity to better understand some of the on-the-ground best practices. Please join us as a partner by contributing your ideas and suggestions,” the website says.

You can submit suggestions and learn more about the effort to reduce improper payments here.

Once again, the Office of Management and Budget is directing federal awarding agencies to step up their efforts to ensure recipients meet their reporting responsibilities under the Recovery Act. And for those recipients who don’t comply, federal agencies will be taking action.

In a new memo, OMB Director Peter Orzag says that while a large number of recipients did report on Recovery Act projects in the first reporting period, a significant number failed to do so. He reminded federal agencies that failure to report constitutes noncompliance with grant award terms and conditions, and may have serious consequences.

To address the issue, federal agencies must take further steps to ensure Recovery Act recipients understand their reporting responsibilities as well as the consequences of noncompliance. Agencies must not only identify each recipient that has not submitted timely reports, but must also contact these organizations, assess the severity of the noncompliance and determine what corrective actions are to be taken – up to and including termination of funding.

To read the OMB memo, click here.

President Obama’s most recent Executive Order aimed at reducing improper payments by federal agencies includes an interesting item. Not only does it direct OMB to examine the effectiveness of single audits in detecting and preventing improper payments, but it also asks for recommendations on how to “streamline or eliminate single audit requirements where their value is minimal.”

Most of the Executive Order is aimed at identifying which federal programs are most vulnerable to improper payments, setting targets and action plans for reducing those erroneous assistance awards, and establishing individual accountability responsibilities for federal agencies.

But in Section 4 of the order, Obama tells OMB to work with state and local governments to reduce improper payments. The agency is to establish two working groups that include representatives from state, local, and federal government entities. One will make recommendations for administrative actions designed to improve the incentives and accountability of state and local governments for reducing improper payments. The other group will focus on single audits.

Both working groups are to be established within one month and must submit their recommendations within six months.

The newly formed bipartisan Senate Budget Committee Task Force on Government Performance held its first hearing yesterday, with testimony from several experts on government efficiency, including the new OMB Deputy Director for Management Jeffrey Zients.

While several themes were discussed, most were not new ideas or concepts. However, there are two I thought interesting.

First, legislators are attempting to play a role in measuring performance, not just in their role of developing the federal budget, but also to instill some form of continuity in the program management system. Several speakers noted the problems that arise when a new measurement system is implemented with each new administration.

And in fact, Zientzs said the Obama administration is working to create a revamped system of setting goals and measurements that is more outcomes-based than previous efforts. But he said the administration doesn’t plan to “throw the baby out with the bath water” but will instead build upon and use those aspects of GRPA and PART that are effective.

Second, the administration and legislators both agree there should be some form of accountability – and even penalties and incentives -  built into a new program management system.

The task force hearing can be viewed online by clicking here.

Registration on the new FederalReporting.gov website – where grantees must post information about their work under the Recovery Act – is lagging and OMB wants federal agencies to help.

In a just-released memo to federal agencies, OMB outlined three steps that federal agencies must “take immediately” to help recipients and subrecipients register with and submit information to FederalReporting.gov.

First, agencies are to begin targeted outreach to remind recipients of their reporting and registration obligations. OMB noted in the memo that current registration numbers on FederalReporting.gov are below expectations and that this could lead to underreporting as the October 10 reporting deadline approaches.

Second, OMB has told agencies to provide in-kind resources for a new government-to-government initiative set up by OMB and the Recovery Act Accountaiblity Board. This effort will  supplement existing technical assistance resources to specifically help state and local governments meet their reporting responsibilities.

Finally, agencies must label recipient registration and reporting delays as a potential agency risk and idenitify steps to mitigate that risk.

To read the full OMB memo to federal agencies, click here.

I’m listening to one of OMB’s Recovery Act reporting training webinars and wanted to alert everyone to an important upcoming date they just announced: on August 17, registration will open on the new FederalReporting.gov site.

All federal awarding agencies, prime recipients, and designated subrecipients must register with the system in order to submit, review, post, and correct the reports required under the Recovery Act.

Entities are encouraged to register early on FederalReporting.gov; ideally at least 45 days before the Ocotber reporting period begins.

I’ll post any additional information about the Recovery Act training webinars throughout the week.

OMB has just announced the dates (July 20-23), topics, and registration information for the Recovery Act reporting webinars. The two-hour sessions are intended for federal agencies, prime recipients, and subrecipients,  and will focus on major sections of the reporting guidance published on June 22.

For information or to register, go to the Recovery.gov website.

On 22 June 2009, the Office of Management and Budget issued additional guidance intended to help recipients, pass-through entities, subrecipients, and federal agencies meet the reporting requirements of Section 1512 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The guidance was issued as a memorandum to federal agencies, and is available at the OMB website .

From this site you can also download a list of the programs that are subject to the Recovery Act’s reporting requirements, as well as a sample Excel spread-sheet that can be used as a model for reporting.

The guidance addresses an array of issues, ranging from federal agencies’ oversight responsibilities and prime recipients’ responsibilities, to ensuring data quality and defining “jobs” for reporting purposes.

I’ll be posting more information about the new guidance very soon, but I wanted to give everyone a heads-up about the new release.

Stay tuned…

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.