Grants Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Streamlining’

The Office of Management and Budget has just created a new Council on Financial Assistance Reform to ”foster more efficient and effective federal financial management.”

The council will work with the Government Accountability and Transparency Board and federal agencies to:

• coordinate the development and implementation of a standardized business process, data standards, and IT
• work with key stakeholders  to eliminate unnecessary regulatory, reporting, and grant agreement requirements and increase flexibilities for satisfying grant requirements;
• identify emerging issues in grants management and policy; and
• serve as a clearinghouse of information on innovations and best practices in grants management.

The council replaces the Grants Policy Committee which was established in 1999 and the Grants Executive Board which was established 2004.

I’ll keep you posted on any new developments and council actions as they occur.

Congress has just approved major changes to the Government Performance and Results Act, pushing for not only better performance from federal agencies and programs, but also better reporting and more transparency.

The measure calls for federal agencies to identify their top priorities, publicly report program results, and identify ineffective and duplicative federal programs.

Each federal agency would designate a Chief Operating Officer and a Performance Improvement Officer with primary responsibility for pursuing cost-savings through the improved analysis and coordination of duplicative programs. These officials would also look at how to better coordinate administrative functions common to every agency, such as purchasing. However, the bill gives no specific direction to agencies on how to conduct any of these assessments.

Agency and governmentwide information relating to performance is to be posted to a new public website on a quarterly basis.

President Obama is expected to sign the legislation, the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010.

Federal agencies now have a new standard report they may use to collect information about the status of real property funded with federal assistance awards. On September 16, the General Services Administration (on behalf of the Grants Policy Committee) released the new Real Property Status Report.

The as-yet-unnumbered standard form has four parts – a cover page and three attachments. Attachment A is for General Reporting, Attachment B is a Request to Acquire, Improve or Furnish property, and Attachment C is a Disposition Request.

The final form is different from the draft released last November and was changed in response to comments from the federal agencies and the grantee community. 

To view the Federal Register notice, the comments and responses on the draft, and the form itself, click here. 

President Obama’s themes of tying performance to funding, and tightening the discretionary budget belt will carry forward into fiscal year 2012 and beyond. In June 2010, OMB issued budget guidance to federal agencies that are now working to develop their FY 12 budget requests for submission to OMB. The guidance, which came in the form of two memos, directs agencies to “identify the programs and subprograms that have the lowest impact on your agency’s mission and constitute at least five percent of your agency’s [FY 10] discretionary budget.” 

In Memo M-10-19, OMB noted that agencies should not simply reduce spending across the board. Instead, agencies should aim to restructure their operations strategically. This should include eliminating low-priority programs and activities, re-engineering staffing plans, improving procurement and grants management processes, and strengthening IT and financial management.

 A follow-up memo, M-10-20, gave more insight into how these reductions are to be achieved. Agencies are to evaluate programs based on their impact on the agency’s mission and relevant administration initiatives. Agencies should consider whether the program has an unclear or duplicative purpose, uncertain federal role, a completed mission, or lack of demonstrated effectiveness, according to the June guidance. The intent is to identify those programs with the lowest impact. OMB emphasized that agencies were not to meet the five-percent low-priority program target with across-the-board reductions or incremental savings in administrative costs.

You can view both of the memos on OMB’s website. Also, remember that these and other recent developments in grants administration will be covered in our Federal Grants Update 2010 seminar which is currently running in locations around the country.

Now is your last chance (probably) to comment on the proposed governmentwide standard Tangible Personal Property Report Form (SF-428).

Yesterday (March 25), the General Services Administration issued a Federal Registernotice inviting comments on the form and announcing that it is sending it for final information collection review before making the form available for governmentwide use. This form is a result of the government’s ongoing streamlining effort which includes issuing standard grants management reporting forms for all agencies to use.

GSA originally published the form in 2008, and received a handful of comments on it. In response, the agency made a few small changes – it clarified the instructions and numbered the attachments.

Comments are due April 26.

To view the announcement, click here.

The Office of Management and Budget is accepting comments on a set of proposed regulations that would impact several parts of the governmentwide grants administration process.

While the impetus for the proposed new rules is a legislative mandate to create a governmentwide database of information about large, potentially high-risk grantees, OMB’s proposal also addresses other areas, especially preaward. It represents the office’s ongoing efforts to relocate governmentwide guidance into one central location – Title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

In many cases OMB’s proposal would simply codify existing policy. For example, a proposed new 2 CFR Part 25 would implement existing OMB guidance regarding the use of DUNS numbers. This guidance is currently in two separate OMB policy memoranda. This is just one example of what is included in the proposed regulations; there are many others.

The proposal would create or amend 2 CFR Part 25, DUNS/CCR registration; 2 CFR Part 27, program announcements; 2 CFR Part 35 postaward responsibilities; 2 CFR Part 77, termination; and 2 CFR Part 180, suspension and debarment.

As for the new database (mandated by the 2009 Defense Authorization Act) it would include information about grantees and subgrantees that receive more than $10 million in federal assistance. Those recipients would have to provide information about any criminal convictions, civil penalties, or administrative actions against them. Self-reporting of that information would be included as a term and condition in grant awards.

Comments are due April 19. To read the full OMB announcment, click here.

The proposed changes, along with other Title 2 developments, will be covered in our upcoming Federal Grants Update 2010 seminar. For dates and locations, click here.

Information about Management Concepts’ annual Federal Grants Update seminar is now available.

This year we’ll be discussing transparency and accountability, audits, standard forms, and more.

These one-day classes start the first week in April and run throughout the summer in cities around the country. Click here to see dates, locations, topics, and registration options.

The National Science Foundation – on behalf of the Grants Policy Committee and the Research Business Models Subcommittee – is accepting final comments on the new governmentwide Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) format, while at the same time putting the format out for use by federal agencies.

In a Federal Register announcement, NSF said agencies may now use the new standard format, which is designed to help streamline the reporting process for grantees as well as allow federal awarding agencies to more easily analyze, compare, and compile research program information.

NSF says it expects this to be the last opportunity for public input before the reporting format is finalized. Comments may be submitted until February 12 via email to Suzanne Plimpton, splimpton@nsf.gov.

You can access the FR notice inviting comments here.

Our annual Federal Grants Update seminar will have additional information about this new report, as well as other developments in grants management. Dates and locations of the one-day seminar will be announced soon. Watch this blog or visit our website www.managementconcepts.com/grants for future information.

Yesterday the House passed its version of a bill to reauthorize the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act, pushing OMB even more to create a one-stop web portal that would consolidate all grant application and management functions and standardize the process governmentwide.

The House version of S. 303 is similar to the Senate bill passed in March 2009. Both direct OMB to beef up Grants.gov so that it serves not only as a central location for grant applications, but also for grants management. The legislation continues the push for standardized reporting forms, and requires OMB to provide Congress with a list of those federal agencies that do not use the standard forms and the central management portal.

The House bill also would require the development of a single data standard for private sector entities to use to submit information to federal agencies, including grant applications and reports.

Because the Senate bill does not contain this language – and because of other differences – members of the House and Senate must now meet in conference to work out a comprise bill before the legislation can be sent to the White House.

We’ll keep you informed about this measure as it moves through Congress. Also, this and other grants-related developments will be covered in Management Concepts’ upcoming Federal Grants Update course. The annual course is offered around the country each spring and summer. Watch our website for details in the coming months.

It seems there are discussions about merging the Grants Policy Committee and the Grants Executive Board in an effort to coordinate the two aspects of the federal grants community.

As its name implies, the GPC is in charge of establishing policies to implement grants streamlining efforts. The GEB, on the other hand, has authority over the business side of the streamlining effort, including Grants.gov and the Grants Management Line of Business.

But soon the two boards may merge into one. Tom Cooley, chair of the GPC, said at a recent National Grants Partnership webinar that there are plans to merge the two so that policy people talk to program people, and they talk to IT people, etc.

Sounds like a good idea to me…