Make Your Comments Heard on OMB's Proposed Uniform Guidance Revisions

We are halfway into the comment period in response to the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) proposed revisions to Title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations, including the uniform guidance at 2 C.F.R. Part 200. If you are affected by federal financial assistance and haven’t reviewed the proposed changes, we encourage you to do so now and make your voice heard.

As of Tuesday, Nov. 7, OMB had received 89 comments in response to its Oct. 5 proposed guidance, many of which are individual comments. Be aware that many organizations and associations representing various different grantee communities are collecting comments from their members and will submit a summary of their concerns closer to the OMB deadline. If you want to respond to such an association’s request, be mindful of their internal deadline for responses to ensure that your thoughts are included as part of the overall response. For example, the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers is collecting comments from its members on the OMB proposal through Nov. 17 to help prepare the association’s response.

Many of the comments submitted thus far have shown support for OMB’s proposal to raise the de minimis indirect cost rate from the current 10% of modified total direct costs to up to 15%. What do you think about this level? Do you agree that the de minimis rate should be 15%, or would you like to see it higher? Do you even think the de minimis rate should even be an option for recipients and subrecipients?

Another big change that OMB is proposing is to raise the single audit threshold from the current $750,000 in federal funds expended annually to $1 million spent annually. Recent figures from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants have shown that most recipients of federal awards are already expending more than $1 million annually, and that the change would only affect a small percentage of current grantees now required to undergo a single audit, as well as a minimal amount of overall federal funding. Therefore, this proposed threshold increased theoretically would offer relief to smaller grantees while still providing proper audit oversight over the majority of federal funding. However, if you are still concerned about the increased potential for fraud and improper payments due to this proposal, let OMB know.

There are numerous other aspects of the proposed revisions that warrant proper public review. A thorough evaluation is needed to make sure all sections within the uniform guidance, as proposed, are in agreement, or whether changes were made in one subpart that were not made in another subpart. One of OMB’s main goals was to make the uniform guidance clearer by putting it in “plain language” and making grants more available to smaller, underserved communities. Let OMB know if the proposed revisions achieved this endeavor.

The comment deadline is Dec. 4. Comments can be sent via Regulations.gov by referring to Docket. No. OMB-2023-0017. Make sure you don’t miss this deadline. After receiving all comments on the proposal, OMB plans to review them and aims to issue final guidance that potentially would become effective in 2024.

Join us for our following Thompson Grants events:
Thompson Grants Workshop: Procurement | Nov. 16, 2023 | Virtual Event
Federal Grants Forum | Dec. 6-8, 2023 | San Juan, P.R.