The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has rolled out a new set of grants management flexibilities to implement the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the recent $1.9 trillion response to the continuing public health and economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. OMB is permitting so-called “class deviations” from some significant existing federal assistance regulations and has told grantor agencies to take full advantage of authority they already have to make case-by-case exceptions to others.
Further, the new combination of waivers, time extensions, and cost-related changes can be applied to all federal grant programs not just those COVID-19-related awards under ARPA. Thus, OMB is allowing federal agencies to step away from some of the more constrictive requirements contained in the uniform guidance. But, it’s up to the agencies to actually implement the flexibilities — and it’s up to recipients to know what they are and to try to obtain them.
OMB’s broad moves replicate similar action it took in March 2020, with two key differences. First, the new flexibilities are not all specifically time-limited. And, perhaps more importantly, OMB plans to monitor the agencies to see that they actually use the flexibility they’ve been given.
This timely webinar will provide you with the tools to pursue administrative relief from a recipient perspective. You’ll learn:
- What flexibilities are available
- How they are supposed to operate
- How to seek and obtain their inclusion in your federal grant awards
- How to balance flexibility and accountability
Join Bob Lloyd, principal of Federal Fund Management AdvisorTM and a respected authority on federal assistance policies, for this thorough and practical examination of OMB’s latest major grants policy initiative.
Who Will Benefit:
- Grant and contract managers
- Sponsored programs administrators
- Project directors
- Executives
- Finance directors
- Legal counsels
- Accounting staff
- Internal auditors
- External auditors