Volume 58 | September 2023

What's Happening?

Days are shorter, nights are cooler and hard to believe the end of the year is fast approaching. With the fast approaching end to 2023, many grants will be coming to an end and it's time for the closeout process. Don't forget to use your helpful closeout checklists, like this one, to help keep your office and your subrecipients on task.

Regardless if the funding is State, Federal or recovery, like ARPA, the tools we have listed on our two websites are helpful across program. They are also just templates and can be changed to meet your needs.

As always, if there is anything you'd like to see in the monthly newsletter, let us know!

BOO!

Did You Know? - Colorado Edition

The Peabody-Whitehead Mansion, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, was once owned by Dr. William Riddick Whitehead, a surgeon of the Crimean War and American Civil War. Dr. Whitehead claimed to have seen the spirits of patients he couldn't save. After the turn of the century, Whitehead died in the mansion. A year later, Colorado Governor James Peabody moved in and was in twined in a political frenzy that resulted in two assassinations attempts on the governor's life. Since then, the mansion has been home to restaurants and other residents. There have been several reports of haunting spirits, glasses breaking, unexplained books flying across the room and more. While the mansion is no longer open and is currently vacant, boarded up and surrounded by fencing, it's said to be inhabited by a number of restless spirits...eek!

Source: UnCoverColorado.com

Grant Updates

OMB Guidance Review - Feedback Requested

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued proposed revisions to the Guidance on Grants and Agreements. The proposed revisions were officially published in the Federal Register for comment. The OMB is seeking comment on several areas that could be modified in future revisions including:

Audit Requirements for for-profit entities
Additional guidance on loans and loan guarantees
Automatic adjustments for certain thresholds
Amendments to indirect costs
Expanding audit guidance to address "proper perspective"

The deadline for comment is December 4. The OSC will not be collecting comments, however we do encourage you to review the proposed revisions and make comments directly to the OMB or a to any of your professional organizations (e.g. NGMA, NASACT, etc). If you are sending comments directly to one of these entities we would appreciate if you could also send us a copy. While it is important to provide comments on the posed questions, it's also very beneficial to provide commentary on other areas of OMB's Guidance on Grants and Agreements that you believe could use clarification and/or amendment.

Resources:

Redlined version of the proposed changes
Regulations.gov (search for recent submissions by OMB to find docket OMB-2023-0017)

Civil Rights Audit Outreach - Information Request

The Grants office is conducting a quick outreach to gather information regarding Federal Civil Rights audits. Your responses will be used by the OSC staff for informational purposes only. Please respond to the request by Friday, October 20.

Compliance Resource Documents

The OSC Compliance team has created numerous compliance resource documents to help agencies navigate the nuances of SLFRF grants management. Several of these documents are specific to SLFRF, however there are a number of them that are applicable to standard grants best practices and processes. In future SWGMG newsletters there will be a section under the SLFRF Compliance Updates section of this newsletter. When time allows we will be updating and migrating many of these documents to the OSC Grants website, but until that time, please feel free to take a look at the documents, as many of them are timely.

Please visit the ARPA website and look for the green banner with the heading "SLFRF Compliance Resources".

SWGMG Summit 2024

Call for Presenters!

The SWGMG Grant Summit is back, May 2024! Do you have any grant best practices you'd like to share with your peers? Do you have any specialized grant processes you've been wanting to share with others? We are looking for presenters to join us in delivering some great tips, updates and best practices. Complete the form to submit your ideas!

We've got big plans for the Summit and can't wait to share! Be on the look out for more SWGMG Summit 2024 updates.

Did you know? - Grants Edition

The history of federal grants dates back to the 1800s! In the early 1800s, grants were issued via land grants and proceeds from the sale of land were for education endowments. There were 130 million acres of federal land were given up for public schools and approximately 4 million acres for higher education. In 1816 states began receiving 5% of the sale of land within their territory. All that funding went to education as well.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

SLFRF Compliance Updates

New and Improved SLFRF Compliance Resources

The SLFRF Compliance Resource tab on the ARPA website has been reorganized. Instead of the a long list of links, the section has been broken out into the following categories:

Pre Award
Award
Post Award
Closeout

Take a look at the new format (see green banner labeled: SLFRF Compliance Resources).

The following compliance resource documents are new or have been updated recently:

Insurance Requirement for Grants - New
Federal Funding Procurement Tool - New
How to Calculate Indirect Cost Rate - New
Program Income - New
UEI FAQ - New
Build American Buy American Act - Updated

SLFRF Agency Assignments

Need to know who your SLFRF Compliance Liaison or Reporting Liaison is for your department? Find them on the SLFRF Agency Assignments or by visiting the ARPA website.