Section 5 of the DATA Act of 2014 requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to establish a pilot program to test whether standardizing the data elements used in recipient reporting can reduce the burden that grantees and contractors experience in reporting on the federal funds that they receive and spend. In this fiscal year, federal agencies have awarded $540 billion in grants and $297 billion in contracts. ...more »
AAU, COGR, and APLU recommend that OMB and federal research funding agencies and/or cognizant agencies work with the research community to explore the optional use of alternatives to measures of time as a means of assessing proper use of federal funds (e.g., information provided in progress reports and publications as an alternative to documenting personnel charges) as well as means of reducing reporting requirements. ...more »
Review existing agency financial reporting regulations to eliminate intra and interagency redundancy.
Eliminate multiple federal payment systems. Financial reporting is unnecessarily complex due to variations across Federal agency systems.
If a centralized reporting database could be developed that all federal agencies, grantees, subrecipients, etc. would be required to use for reporting, and it would prepopulate many of the fields once the entity enters their FAIN, this would ease a lot of the reporting burden.
However, first, the FAIN would have to start being included in grant agreements so entities have that piece of information to enter.
Last year, the Coalition for Government Procurement submitted a number of recommendations in response to the Chief Acquisition Officers Council (CAO) Council Open Dialogue to improve the economy and efficiency of the Federal acquisition system. The Coalition urges the government to take action on the previously submitted recommendations to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of Federal procurement. Implementing ...more »
Comment from June 10 Data Act Summit breakout session on Recipient Reporting:
As a Federal Award recipient, I want to easily correct errors I find in government data systems. I want to be able to alert the contracting office, for them to quickly make a correction, for this process to be seamless.
Comment from June 10 Data Act Summit breakout session on Recipient Reporting: As a Federal Award recipient, I want transactional data reporting to be a more efficient method than a weekly form. There’s a need to minimize weekly re-entry of the same information that was submitted previously. Also the government already has a lot of this information, so the recipient should only be required to report what the government ...more »
Comment from June 10 Data Act Summit breakout session on Recipient Reporting:
As a Federal Award recipient, I want to see more pre-populated forms and drop-down options to minimize the burden of completing reporting.
Comment from June 10 Data Act Summit breakout session on Recipient Reporting:
There needs to be alignment of Federal Spending elements and the elements in the CDERL and elements like entity classification
Comment from June 10 Data Act Summit breakout session on Recipient Reporting:
I’m interested in Entity Classifications- better classifications, better utilization of existing classifications. I want to, for example, be able to look in USASpending.gov and analyze the dollars going to non-profits.
Comment from June 10 Data Act Summit breakout session on Recipient Reporting:
As a Federal contract recipient, I want performance reporting to be in one place.