[Okgrantsmanship] FW: COGR: Federal Government Shutdown - Some Resources

[Mason, Linda]

Linda Mason, Ed.D.

Coordinator for Grant Writing Assistance

Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education

655 Research Parkway, Suite 200

Oklahoma City OK 73104

405-225-9486 voice

405-225-9230 fax

lmason at osrhe.edu

 

________________________________

From: titone at usc.edu [mailto:titone at usc.edu] 
Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 6:15 PM
To: COGR
Subject: COGR: Federal Government Shutdown - Some Resources

 

As directed by the Office of Management and Budget, each
department/agency has developed a plan for how the agency will operate
during a funding hiatus, lapse, a.k.a. government shutdown.   Agencies
have begun to post their plans to their websites and issue notice and
guidance to their awardees.  
 
COGR sent an email to the membership describing the OMB guidance to
agencies on Thursday.  The OMB general guidance is available at:   
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda_default.   The Department of
Health & Human Services (home to the National Institutes of Health) and
the National Science Foundation have posted their agency plans to their
websites - HHS Fiscal Year 2011 Contingency Staffing Plan for Operations
in the Absence of Enacted Annual Appropriations at: 
http://www.hhs.gov/about/shutdown/index.html ; and  NSF at: 
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/shutdown11001/shutdown11001.pdf.
Additional guidance from NSF for grantees and contractors is attached
here.  Other agencies are sending notices to awardees and/or posting
information to their websites. 
 
What's common is that unless you hear directly from the agency, grantees
and contractors should continue working on currently funded projects.
For those agencies that use local electronic systems (not Grants.gov)
for applications, submission of progress reports, requests for payments,
etc., those systems generally will not be available during the shutdown.
Thus, Grants.gov will be available but most other, local systems
(including those that link to Grants.gov) will not be available.
Fastlane will not be available.   NSF will issue guidance about
submitting applications to programs with deadlines during the shutdown
AFTER the shutdown.   Unless you're using HHS Payment Management System
(PMS) or Treasury's ASP which are available during the shutdown,
payments to grantees will not be processed or payments made until after
the shutdown.   No new grants/contracts will be issued during the
shutdown.  
 
As you think about what to expect during a shutdown, any activity -
payment, issuing an award, etc. - that requires an action by a Federal
employee - payment approval, issuing a notice of award, etc. - will not
likely occur.  Activities that can continue without an employee's action
can continue.  Thus, in terms of payments, those that are entirely
automated or support critical or essential programs - HHS's PMS supports
a variety of payments made by the agency including health service
centers, Medicare, etc., will remain available.   In terms of reporting,
FederalReporting.gov will be available so you can continue to do your
ARRA reporting and the FSRS.gov system for FFATA subrecipient reporting
will likely be available as well.  But NSF will not be issuing payments
during a shutdown because the payment system is unavailable.
Nonetheless, your award notice is a promise to pay and payments can be
anticipated when Federal employees return to work.   
 
We are reviewing other agency plans and these approaches are consistent.
Agencies can stop work on cooperative agreements, contracts and some
grants if the participation of a Federal employee is essential and that
employee is unavailable.  Similarly, work can be stopped if the funding
stream allocated to the award is dependent on the passage of the FY 2011
budget.   Some institutions have received messages warning them that
stop work orders may be issued.  Such a warning is an alert.  Agencies
must provide a stop work order to halt activities on individual projects
or contracts.   
 
We will continue to monitoring the agencies for any changes.  If the
shutdown last for a long period of time, some of the current plan
elements may change.  We've tried to be cautious throughout the
confusion concerning a possible government shutdown.  Absent official
announcements, we have avoided speculating on what would happen and
tried to confirm any information we provide you.   We will continue to
maintain that approach.  
 
Carol Blum
Director, Research Compliance and Administration
Council on Governmental Relations (COGR)
1200 New York Ave., NW, Suite 750
Washington DC 20005
202-289-6655, ext. 117
cblum at cogr.edu
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