NGP Blog

NGP publishes Recommendations to Administration Transition Team

The paper produced by Eric Brenner and Cornelia Chebinou, based on the input of NGP members, is now available on the NGP web site, here [Word format].

November 18 webcast and slides now available

We just posted the webcast recording and presentation slides to the NGP web site. Check them out here! (Due to some technical problems, the first 10 minutes of the webcast were not recorded, and some portions of the audio and video are missing. We apologize for this occurrence, which we will strive never to repeat!)

Grants.gov opportunity e-mails to end

Take note! Grants.gov will be terminating its opportunity notification e-mails very soon. Everyone should shift to using the Grants.gov RSS feeds.

Coburn unhappy with currency of USAspending.gov data

As reported on NextGov yesterday, Senator Tom Coburn, one of the original sponsors of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (aka "FFATA") is unhappy about the timeliness of some agencies' data in USAspending.gov. As Robert Shea, the OMB executive who until recently oversaw this initiative, says, they're dealing with some gnarly problems in order to get the data published to the site at all.

Some new (to me, and maybe to you) information is in this article:

• OMB can extend the deadline for subaward reporting by 18 months, if they need to
• OMB Watch helped draft the 2008 Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act legislation, which is now in front of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

NGP September 16th agenda/registration now available

Click here to see the agenda for the NGP's September 16th meeting and webcast. Registration details are also on this page. Join us for another lively discussion of all the latest in the grants world, including:

• Transition and Reauthorization of PL 106-107
• Transparency Act & Subaward Pilot Update
• The Partnership for Intergovernmental Management & Accountability Implementation of A-87 and Survey Results
• Grants Management Certification Update
• Illinois Resource Net

And don't forget to mark your calendars for the following NGP meeting, on November 18, 2008!

2008 P.L. 106-107 Reauthorization Cost Estimate

The Congressional Budget Office has posted its cost estimate for S. 3341, the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 2008.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/97xx/doc9702/s3341.pdf

[Updated 9/3/08] Thanks to Theresa Defino, we spotted a mistake in the title of this posting, which originally referred to FFATA. Thanks, Theresa!

Final FFR Released

The Office of Management and Budget has published the final federal financial report consolidating and replacing four existing financial reporting forms (SF-269, SF-269A, SF-272, and SF-272A) with a single Federal Financial Report (FFR). The purpose of the FFR is to give recipients of grants and cooperative agreements a standard format for reporting the financial status of their grants and cooperative agreements (hereby referred to collectively as awards). Federal awarding agencies developed the FFR as part of their implementation of the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999 (Pub. L. 106-107). Copies of the proposed collection may be obtained by going to OMB's main Web page at http://www.OMB.gov and clicking on the ``Grants Management,'' then ``Forms'' then Proposed Government-Wide Standard Grants Reporting Forms links. Comments are recommended by Setember 12.

Survey on Circular A-87

This is a reminder that the deadline for completing the survey on Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-87 (2 CFR, Part 225, Cost Principles for State, Local and Tribal Governments) is close of business
this Friday, July 18.

The identity of those completing the survey is strictly confidential. The link to the online survey is:
http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2beaq4zfhng3aob/start

More after the link below...

Grants Policy Committee goes webified!

The Grants Policy Committee just announced their new web site, with its very own three-letter government domain name (we geeks are awed by such wonders!). Check it out at www.gpc.gov. It's got webcast archives, contact information, a breakdown of which groups are involved, and a document repository -- all the structure needed to provide a great resource!

Aaah, I love communication. It's what the grants community has been missing the most, in my opinion, so let's all raise a glass to GPC.gov and wish it long years of happy, frequent updating!