grants | The Contracting Education Academy

January 26, 2021 By cs

Just what you’d guess: Federal discretionary spending is up

The government contracting industry is a complex marketplace.

No other industry is as dependent on the successes and failures of federal policy, regulation, and Congressional leadership.

Our ecosystem lives or dies by it. Elements of the sector ebb and flow depending not only on the needs wants, whims, and votes of American citizens but also the global stage, all of which command our ~$1 trillion competitive landscape pipelined through Federal discretionary spending.

Vendors enter into the fray with dollar signs in their eyes, and at a glance, they’re right to be excited about the potential. But those of us in-the-know understand working with the federal Government isn’t an opportunity to print money, and what is considered a steady investment still has its ups and downs.

Here’s an examination the state of federal discretionary spending (procurements and grants) over the last ten (10) … yes 10 … years, as we close out the decade not with a whisper – but with a boom.

Keep reading this article at: https://thepulsegovcon.com/article/a-decade-in-federal-discretionary-spending/

January 3, 2019 By AMK

DoD’s new rules of the road for ‘other transactions’

For over 60 years, the U.S. government has entered into agreements called “other transactions.”

The Other Transaction Authority, or OTA, permits specific agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense, to enter into agreements “other than standard government contracts or other traditional mechanisms” like procurement contracts, grants and cooperative agreements.

While OT activity continues to increase, formal guidance regarding the effective use of such agreements has been sparse. In an effort to articulate some rules of the road, on Dec. 3, 2018, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment issued its broad “Other Transaction (OT) Guide.”

While the OTA has been available to the DoD since the late eighties, the DoD has ramped up its OT activity in recent years to obtain research, cutting edge technology and even full production of military hardware, awarding “$21 billion through 148 OTAs between 2015 and 2017.”

Congress has stated that the DoD “has authority to use OTAs with the most flexible possible interpretation.” As observed by the Government Accountability Office, OT agreements “can be useful in attracting … companies that have traditionally not done business with federal agencies.”

By its own terms, the guide was not intended to – and does not — provide step-by-step, mandatory instructions for the exercise of OTA by the DoD similar to the instructions in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, for traditional procurement contracts. The guide cautions readers that it “is not a formal policy statement,” and does not purport to offer a final “interpretation of statutory, regulatory and formal policy requirements.” The guide states that those seeking to enter into an OT agreement “should consult with legal counsel.”

Nevertheless, the guide covers the waterfront of the DoD’s OT tools, and provides helpful examples, definition and context. This advisory highlights some key aspects of the guide.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/766534

February 28, 2018 By AMK

Agencies will have to race the clock to spend massive influx of money

After years of absorbing cuts or flat spending levels, most federal agencies will soon face a novel dilemma: spending a massive influx of money with only a few months to get it out the door.

A recent agreement struck by congressional leadership and signed into law by President Trump boosted non-defense discretionary spending for agencies by $63 billion in fiscal 2018. The measure also included a continuing resolution through March 23 to buy lawmakers time to write line-by-line appropriations, meaning a forthcoming omnibus bill will give agencies only about six months to spend the new funding before it expires Oct. 1. Such a tight timeline could prove problematic for agencies and put pressure on many areas of their operations, according to former federal budgeters.

“This will tax grant making, contract professionals, hiring professionals,” said Robert Shea, a former associate director for administration and government performance at the Office of Management and Budget in the George W. Bush administration. “This is going to tax every facet of the agencies just to make sure they’re spending wisely.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/management/2018/02/agencies-will-race-clock-to-spend-massive-influx-of-money/146112

December 13, 2013 By AMK

Study finds limitations in federal grant data

Two academics who set out to analyze government grants to nonprofit organizations found that the databases housing that information continue to resist easy use.

The federal government posts onto USAspending.gov data on awards and sub-awards (grants of federal dollars made by an intermediary such as a state government), but when Jesse Lecy of Georgia State University and Jeremy Thornton of Samford University attempted to study 2012 data, they found significant data limitations.

In a Nov. 25 paper, the two academics say their first hurdle was to identify nonprofits within data sets about recipients of federal money, a task made difficult by the fact that the Federal Assistance Award Data System and the Federal Procurement Data System record entities according to DUNS numbers. The Internal Revenue Service tracks entities according to EIN numbers.

Having access to EINs was important to the researchers, since they wanted to match USAspending.gov data taken from FAADS and FPDS to nonprofit financial information held by the National Center for Charitable Statistics, which uses the publicly available EINs as its database unique identifier. The center classifies charities according to the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities; correlating federal recipients to their NTEE major category would allow the researchers to identify which sectors receive the most federal support.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/study-finds-limitations-federal-grant-data/2013-12-01

The government contracting industry is a complex marketplace.

For over 60 years, the U.S. government has entered into agreements called “other transactions.”

After years of absorbing cuts or flat spending levels, most federal agencies will soon face a novel dilemma: spending a massive influx of money with only a few months to get it out the door.

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