(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Single Audit Information Service.) The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to use information gleaned from its current fraud risk assessments of state-run health insurance marketplaces to help it conduct similar fraud risk assessments within the Medicaid and Medicare programs, in response to a recent recommendation from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) Nonfederal entities receiving federal funds under the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) should be aware that the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is revising the program’s performance accountability measures.

As we now enter the holiday season, this provides us a great opportunity to look back at the previous year pertaining to grants. Last December, we came out with a blog post discussing what we expected to be some of the biggest things to look for in 2017. Let’s take a look at that list again to see what we said at the time and how those predictions fared:

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Single Audit Information Service.) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to revise by September 2018 its procedures for conducting improper payment risk assessments to ensure all agency programs, including those of its Office of Inspector General (OIG), are evaluated every three years, in response to a recent recommendation from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

We here at Thompson are always trying to keep an eye on the future of grants and as we prepare to head into 2018, we are very curious to see what will develop as two provisions of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) uniform grant guidance are addressed in the coming year.

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Federal Grants Management Handbook.) The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is evaluating how several federal laws will necessitate changes to the uniform grant guidance, an OMB grants official told attendees recently at the Maryland Governor’s Grants Office’s training conference.

In case you haven’t realized it yet, it’s now December and the clock is ticking. No, we’re not talking about meeting the deadline for getting your holiday shopping done. In the grants community, the end of the month is when Grant.gov plans to phase out its legacy PDF application package download process and require all users to apply for awards via its Workspace functionality.

(The following was excerpted from a recent article in the Single Audit Information Service.) Officials with the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) plan to develop and implement corrective actions by next summer to address internal control issues related to data quality under the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) (Pub. L. 113-101), in response to recommendations in a recent audit commissioned by the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG).