Out With the Old -- Outdated Federal Guidance, That Is

In an ironic twist of fate, today we are posting our first blog directly onto our new Grantviews Editorial Commentary section, and it will feature something old. To be more specific, that would be outdated federal guidance.

This stems from the Office of Management and Budget’s recently released Memorandum M-18-23, entitled “Shifting From Low-Value to High-Value Work,” in which OMB explains that the President’s Management Agency prioritizes “reducing the burden of low-value activities and redirecting resources to accomplishing mission outcomes that matter most to citizens.” The memo notes that OMB has worked with federal agencies to propose to eliminate or modify 407 congressionally required plans and reports because they are outdated or duplicative.

The memo has three goals: (1) provide guidance to federal agencies to regularly review their own management guidance, identify opportunities to streamline operations and reduce burden on their components and publicly report their progress; (2) summarize recent actions that central management agencies have taken to free agencies from unnecessary burden; and (3) rescind obsolete guidance documents to reduce unnecessary compliance requirements for federal agencies.

This last goal is of interest here to grantees, as OMB has rescinded the following 12 previously-issued memoranda related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, all of which are now outdated:

• M-09-10, Initial Implementing Guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Feb. 18, 2009)
• M-09-14, Recovery Act Implementation — Improving Grants.gov and Other Critical Systems (March 9, 2009)
• M-09-15, Updated Implementing Guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (April 3, 2009)
• M-09-16, Interim Guidance Regarding Communications With Registered Lobbyists About Recovery Act Funds (April 7, 2009)
• M-09-18, Payments to State Grantees for Administrative Costs of Recovery Act Activities (May 11, 2009)
• M-09-21, Implementing Guidance for the Reports on Use of Funds Pursuant to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (June 22, 2009)
• M-09-24, Updated Guidance Regarding Communications with Registered Lobbyists About Recovery Act Funds (July 24, 2009)
• M-09-30, Improving Recovery Act Recipient Reporting (Sept. 11, 2009)
• M-10-05, Improving Compliance in Recovery Act Recipient Reporting (Nov. 30, 2009)
• M-10-08, Updated Guidance on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — Data Quality, Non-Reporting Recipients, and Reporting of Job Estimates (Dec. 18, 2009)
• M-10-34, Updated Guidance on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Sept. 24, 2010)
• M-11-34, Accelerating Spending of Remaining Funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for Discretionary Grant Programs (Sept. 15, 2011)

Also, because funds have been disbursed or guidance has been superseded, OMB rescinded the following previously issued guidance and memoranda:

• OMB Controller Alert: Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Internal Controls (Feb. 19, 2013)
• OMB Controller Alert: Implementing the SAVE Award (April 8, 2013)
• M-04-05, Clarification of Pass back Language to Grant-Making Agencies (Jan. 7, 2004)
• M-10-26, Immediate Review of Financial Systems IT Projects (June 2010)

Much of the remainder of the memorandum discusses old guidance and streamlining efforts pertaining to human capital, general services, information technology and contracting. This entire administrative effort makes sense; there’s no need to maintain guidance related to long-outdated financial assistance efforts such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We here at Thompson did the same thing a while back when we removed a special tab from our Federal Grants Management Handbook specifically addressing requirements under the Recovery Act. A bit of spring cleaning is always helpful to get better organized, even if it is in late summer in this case. We’ll be interested to see what guidance agencies opt to delete in the future to see what kind of impact it may have on grant recipients – either positive or negative.