(The following was excerpted from an article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) Grant program managers who have staff on travel for their federal awards should be aware that the Office of Management and Budget’s uniform grant reform guidance, in an effort to encourage family-friendly policies, has included new language under the “travel” cost item related to temporary dependent care costs. Such costs also are mentioned under “conferences.” In addition to the new travel costs, there is also more flexibility with prior travel costs, requiring recipients to review and update local written policies, as needed.

It’s been many, many months in the making but the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, better known as the DATA Act, is finally becoming a law. Now the question is, “What next?” What does this mean? If you want to find out more about the DATA Act, have we got something for you!

As a child of the 1980s, I have lots of fond memories of life back then, especially listening to music on my cassette tapes. If you are a devoted fan of the Electric Light Orchestra (or ELO) as I am, you’d remember that they had a song called “Ticket to the Moon,” which started “Remember the good ‘ol 1980s, when things were so uncomplicated, I wish I could go back there again and everything would be the same.”

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Single Audit Information Service.) The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General has released its list of 25 priority recommendations that it maintains, if fully implemented, would help the agency save costs and improve program management. These priority recommendations include reducing improper payments and improving the oversight of grantee compliance, quality assurance and conflicts of interest.

This is a big week on the grants calendar in the nation’s capital. The National Grants Management Association will be hosting its annual grants training conference Tuesday through Thursday in Crystal City, Va., and we’ll be there to cover it all. If you are in the D.C. area, come on down because this promises to be one of the most informative conferences in years in light of the Office of Management and Budget’s new uniform grant guidance. Also, I’d love you meet you in person.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) Department of Labor officials plan to assess best practices to enable state labor departments to better identify how many participants trained in the Workforce Investment Act’s Adult and Dislocated Worker programs were employed in the area in which they were trained, in response to recent recommendations by the Government Accountability Office.

Nobody’s perfect, even the federal government. Within the huge document that is the Office of Management and Budget’s uniform grant guidance, there are random technical errors and inconsistencies that must be corrected. Such errors are not errors in policies within the guidance, but skipped numbers in a sequence in a section, incorrect references, misspellings, etc.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Single Audit Information Service.) Auditees and auditors preparing the Data Collection Form to submit with a single audit reporting package to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse should be aware of process changes expected for the next revision of the form that are aimed at conforming with the uniform grant guidance.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Single Audit Information Service.) In fiscal year 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, in response to referrals from Medicaid Fraud Control Units, excluded a greater number of health care providers and other entities convicted of fraud and other program-related crimes from receiving Medicaid funds compared to the last three fiscal years.

One of my favorite commercials is one I’m sure you’ve seen many times now. You know – the camel commercial. The GEICO commercial where the camel walks through the office and asks his coworkers “GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS? GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS?” He’s giddy because it is Wednesday, otherwise known as “Hump Day.” My kids know this commercial by heart and still repeat it to their friends every Wednesday.