It’s one thing for an auditor to come down hard on a grant recipient for lacking internal controls — that we’ve seen before. But it’s another when an auditor takes another auditor to task for that same offense. When I saw this the other day, my eyes widened.

For those familiar with animal research as part of grant projects, the National Institutes of Health wants to hear from you. NIH’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare recently announced that it is seeking comments and suggestions on its guidance to awardee institutions concerning the implementation of the Public Health Service policy on humane care and use of laboratory animals.

The Office of Management and Budget’s grant reform guidance has been publicly available now for about three months. If you’ve read it cover to cover, you may have possibly noticed certain continuity flaws or glitches. If so, OMB is requesting that you let them know about those inconsistencies.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) The Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration, in response to Government Accountability Office recommendations, plans to update its grant procedures and operations manuals to clearly denote proper documentation that agency officials should complete when selecting proposed grant projects.

Albert Einstein once quoted that immortal line that I’m quite sure you’ve heard before, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Well, this slogan is appropriate now that it’s March Madness time again. How many years have you been filling out the NCAA basketball tournament brackets thinking that this will be the year that you win the office pool only to be let down, yet again? After the completion of the tournament, we should have a clear ranking of the number one team in the land.  

Anyone who has read through the Office of Management and Budget’s grant reform guidance (and I would hope that all grants stakeholders already have) knows that improving performance is a critical goal for the future of grants management. Although not directly linked to the guidance, the Federal Highway Administration published a proposed rule in the Federal Register this week that would develop new safety performance measures for the Highway Safety Improvement Program.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Single Audit Information Service.) The Government Accountability Office encouraged the Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration to provide specific criteria to states to help them determine whether local entities are capable and equipped to administer federally funded highway projects. A recent GAO report found that many local public agencies lack the internal controls to properly administer such projects, while many state departments of transportation are not appropriately overseeing them.

After focusing so much on the details of the Office of Management and Budget’s grant reform guidance, we failed to notice an important announcement recently posted on the Recovery.gov website. The Section 1512 reporting requirement for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act awards is coming to an end.

Recipients of grants from the National Science Foundation should be aware that the agency recently revised its Grant General Conditions, along with some of its other key grants policies. The revisions, effective Feb. 24, 2014, aren’t overly extensive, but they do include a significant change related to program income.