(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) While the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) generally promotes competition when it awards discretionary grants and cooperative agreements, the agency may allow noncompetitive awards in certain circumstances under its regulations adopting the uniform grant guidance.

About 600 attendees packed the Crystal City Marriott last week to attend the National Grants Management Association’s 2015 Annual Training Meeting in Crystal City, Va. on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. The attendance has risen steadily since 2012, and NGMA hopes for an even larger turnout when it hosts the conference at the same site next year.

This week is one of the biggest of the whole year for those of us covering grants at Thompson Information Services. The National Grants Management Association’s annual training conference begins on Wednesday in Crystal City, Va., and it will be one of the most anticipated events we’ve had around here in a while. This will be the first NGMA annual conference since 28 federal agencies and offices integrated the Office of Management and Budget’s uniform grant guidance into their regulations on Dec. 26, 2014. There is so much to learn about how the uniform guidance will affect grant programs so attendees will most assuredly be listening closely.

In case you haven’t checked out USAspending.gov in some time, you may notice some new features that have enhanced the functionality of the site. Operators of USAspending.gov said the changes were made to meet user request for better usability, presentation and search.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Single Audit Information Service.) Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should consider the growing risks affecting Medicaid as they work to reduce the billions of dollars of improper payments reported under the program, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report addressing the nation’s high-risk programs. Medicaid is a high-risk program, and the amount of improper payments increased in GAO’s most recent study.

Stakeholders in the grant and contract communities are encouraged to participate in a two-year online initiative to share their ideas and reactions to proposals to reduce the costs associated with reporting compliance under federal awards.

(The following was excerpted from an article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is collaborating with Indian tribal organizations to determine whether to ask Congress for additional flexibilities in the Foster Care program to enable more tribes to participate, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.