(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Single Audit Information Service.) The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) reaffirmed its recent audit recommendation that the New Jersey Department of Human Services return about $95 million in Medicaid funds to the federal government, despite the state’s contention that the audit recommendation would impose “unreasonable documentation standards” on Medicaid providers.

With the arrival of Donald Trump as president last week, grant applicants and recipients may have already noticed that the federal government is not running “business as usual.” For example, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) website is typically where grantees would go to find grant documents such as the uniform guidance, former OMB circulars, annual releases of the OMB Compliance Supplement, executive orders and federal forms.

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) The Department of Education (ED) is amending its regulations under programs governed by Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to require states and local educational agencies (LEAs) to use a standard methodology to determine whether there is a significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity in statewide schools when identifying children with disabilities. The amended regulations are effective as of Jan. 18.

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Single Audit Information Service.) The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is assessing methods to improve operational efficiency in the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) program after a recent audit by the CNCS Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that NCCC services cost up to eight times more than comparable services provided under the CNCS AmeriCorps State and National (ASN) Program.

Talk about the federal government putting a lot of eggs in one basket. The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Federal Transit Administration (FTA) this week provided about $1.07 billion in federal grant funds to the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) for the first phase of its Red and Purple Modernization Project. The project will reconstruct a section of the rail lines on the north side of Chicago to expand capacity on one of CTA’s busiest corridors.

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) A provision in a bill passed by Congress that would raise the current micro-purchase procurement threshold for research programs and entities could help relieve administrative burdens for universities and other research institutions that have spent considerable effort lobbying the federal government to raise the threshold.

As Shakespeare wrote, “What’s in a name?” Sometimes a name change can seem like a small thing, but it is important to take note of it. We mention this because, effective this week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has amended the terms it uses to describe grantees and subgrantees in its Public Assistance and Fire Management Assistance Grant regulations.