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P.L. 106-107 has joined with the NGP steering committee in an effort to foster collaboration with the State, Local Government, Tribal and Non-Profit entities. In addition to participating in bi-weekly conference calls and the establishment of NGP and P.L. 106-107 product communication procedures; P.L. 106-107 participated in the first NGP General Meeting, which was held on February 16, 2005. Click here for more information . Grants Management Training/Certification workgroup established P.L. 106-107 has just recently kicked off the Government-wide Grants Management Training/Certification workgroup. The first meeting was held on March 3, 2005 and was attended by representatives from most of the 26 Federal Grant Making Agencies. This P.L. 106-107 training/certification workgroup will begin benchmarking all Federal Agency Grants Management Courses currently in existence, any private Grants Management Training courses from organizations and Universities, various Federal Agency Certification Programs, and any other non-Federal grants management certification programs. We will be seeking to establish a baseline of "best practices". We hope that this will begin a new era in Federal Grants Management Career Development, which will in turn foster consistency in grants management business processes across the government. Click here for more information. OMB Memoranda to the Agencies OMB has issued several memoranda (M-04-05, January 7, 2004 and M-04-14, June 8, 2004), signed by the Controller and the Assistant Administrator for IT and E-Gov, that confirm OMB's commitment to continued funding and improvement of the capabilities of Grants.gov FIND and APPLY. Cost Principle Changes On May 10, 2004, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued in the Federal Register [69 FR 25970], a final set of changes to conform language in the three different sets of OMB cost principles, OMB Circulars A-21, Cost Principles for Educational Institutions, A-87, Cost Principles for State, Local and Indian Tribal Governments, and A-122, Cost Principles for Non-Profit Organizations. These changes are intended to simplify the cost principles, making the description of similar items consistent and reducing the possibility of misunderstanding. Details of the changes are available at the OMB website. Title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations The Office of Management and Budget has undertaken an initiative to establish title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) as the location where the public can find both OMB guidance for grants and agreements and the associated Federal agency implementing regulations. The initiative provides a good foundation for streamlining and simplifying the policy framework for grants and agreements under P.L. 106-107. The primary benefit is that OMB guidance and agency rules will be available in a single place making it more accessible by the public. Initially, OMB is relocating its current OMB circulars pertaining to grants and agreements in title 2. When several of those circulars are changed, as anticipated, based on the interagency work under P.L. 106-107, OMB will issue that revised guidance in title 2 and the agencies that issue rules will issue their implementing rules in their respective parts of title 2. The Federal Register document that established title 2 CFR [69 FR 26276, May 11, 2004] describes this initiative in greater detail. Grants Streamlining Initiative Website This new website is designed to provide the public and the Federal grant-making agencies current information about the various interagency grants streamlining and simplification activities — their purpose and objectives, timing, and other pertinent details. These activities include those under P.L. 106-107 and the related activities of the Grants.gov and the Grants Management Line of Business initiatives. Grants Management Line of Business Grants Management Line of Business initiative is a government-wide effort, begun in the spring of 2004, that seeks to develop a government-wide solution to support end-to-end grants management activities that promote citizen access, customer service, and agency financial and technical stewardship. The Line of Business objectives, which cover the life cycle of grants and cooperative agreements, include improved customer access to grant opportunities; increased efficiency of the application submission process; improved decision making; and improved efficiency of the reporting procedures in order to increase the usable information content. Grants.gov FIND and APPLY Grants.gov, which is intended as a government-wide portal for the public to learn about Federal grant and cooperative agreement funding opportunities (Grants.gov FIND) and, if eligible, to apply for those in which they have an interest (Grants.gov APPLY), has been operational since October 2003. Since the policy requiring posting of synopses of Federal grant and cooperative agreement funding opportunities (with a link to or inclusion of the full announcement) became effective, more than 3,000 funding opportunities have been synopsized in the Find Grant Opportunities page. Programs are being made available for application on an incremental basis. Several hundred programs have received applications through the Apply for Grants portal, resulting in over 1,000 applications. The numbers of programs and applications will increase in fiscal year 2005. Congressional Testimony
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