Sneak Preview: EPA Seeks Improved Tracking of Grantee Results

(The following is excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants 360 article.) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be engaging with its grant awardees and other stakeholders to better determine ways to track recipients to ensure its awarded grant dollars lead to desired environmental outcomes, according to a learning priority addressed in EPA’s draft 2022-2026 strategic plan.

The draft strategic plan, released Oct. 1, includes a mission statement and a range of long-term performance goals that reflect the quantifiable outcomes the agency aims to achieve under various strategic objectives and cross-agency strategies by 2026. EPA is currently accepting comments through Nov. 12 on the draft plan, and anticipates submitting a final strategic plan to Congress in February 2022.

Along with the performance goals discussed in the draft document, EPA also included its draft learning agenda that encompasses a framework to assist the agency in gaining evidence-based information on certain key topics. One of these learning priority areas is entitled “Grant Commitments Met.” EPA annually awards about $4 billion in grants, and agency policies require each award to be tied to its strategic plan, and that the environmental results associated with grant actions be clearly established. However, EPA lacks a comprehensive system for tracking grant-related activities, the draft plan stated, leading to an inability to proficiently evaluate environmental outcomes on a national scale.

“While some regions and programs employ a coordinated process to negotiate and track grant commitments, others rely on project officers,” according to the document. “In addition, the agency’s current centralized grants management system is not configured to collect and track grantee progress on discrete commitments. EPA’s work under this learning priority area will further agency efforts to effectively report on the outcomes of taxpayer dollars and to make informed resource decisions.”

(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)

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