(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Single Audit Information Service.) The Department of Transportation (DOT), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) plans to develop guidance by the end of next year to help its division offices more consistently monitor state-submitted financial and project management plans for major highway projects, in response to a recent recommendation by the DOT Office of Inspector General (OIG).

Stakeholder feedback is always a good thing, especially when it comes to initiatives taken by the federal government. As it seeks to ensure that the uniform grant guidance performs as intended — by reducing administrative burden while eliminating fraud, waste and abuse — the Council on Financial Assistance Reform (COFAR) has developed a new tool on the COFAR webpage to allow nonfederal stakeholders to provide voluntary feedback on the uniform guidance’s effectiveness on meeting these goals. Commenters also can discuss how well COFAR and the Office of Management and Budget are doing in giving the public an opportunity to comment on the guidance.

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) Applicants vying for grants and cooperative agreements from the National Institutes of Health should be aware that NIH has simplified its policy for reviewing applications that are submitted late. The agency has adopted a standard two-week window of consideration after the application due date for all award announcements, during which time NIH might consider accepting a late application depending on the reason. The new late application policy is one of several new NIH policy updates that took effect Jan. 25.

Now that the Office of Management and Budget’s uniform grant guidance is in place and federal agencies have adopted it into their regulations, the folks at these agencies can’t just sit back and declare their work finished. Now comes a thankless task within the agencies of trying to update all their internal documents to integrate uniform guidance language and provisions. And don’t expect this process to be a quick one; it could take iterations.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Single Audit Information Service.) State educational agencies (SEAs) submitting renewals this spring for provision waivers under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (Pub. L. 107-110), must ensure that the information they submit is accurate, reliable and complete, in response to a recent Department of Education (ED) Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit recommendation.

If you are in the Washington, D.C., vicinity next week, Thompson Information Services and the Performance Institute are offering an excellent chance to learn all about the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) uniform grant guidance, featuring an A-list of speakers on various topics to better oversee your grant programs. Seats are still available for this terrific training opportunity.

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) A working group of the National Science and Technology Council’s Research Business Models (RBM) subcommittee is taking steps to update the existing governmentwide research terms and conditions to incorporate the uniform grant guidance.

It seems like yesterday, but it was actually 15 years ago. Folks in their 30s and up probably remember the panic surrounding the Y2K technology concerns. In late 1999, there were concerns that the computers at that time couldn’t distinguish between the year 2000 and the year 1900, among other glitches. This created fears that computers would malfunction, causing utilities and other crucial infrastructure to fail.