1. David Curren – NIH Richard Fenger – University of Washington
Open Government
David Curren – NIH
Richard Fenger – University of Washington

2. Recap from Last Meeting – Jan 2014
Legislative Update
DATA Act
GRANT Act
GONE Act
Transparency Impact on Select Issues
Dual Use Research
Animal Welfare
Intellectual Property

3. Today’s Goals Recap from last meeting Legislative Update
DATA Act
Transparency Impact on Select Issues
FSRS – An effort discussion

4. DATA Act Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014
Bill S.994 passed both houses of Congress 4/28/14. Awaiting Presidential signature.
Amends existing FFATA legislation
Assigns much of implementation to OMB and Treasury
Transfers RATBoard assets to Treasury and allows central data analysis center

5. DATA Act – Agency Reports
Requires Agency reports to USASpending.gov:
data for each appropriations account: amount appropriated, amount obligated, and "other budgetary sources"
amount of funds obligated/outlayed for each program activity
amount of funds obligated/outlayed for each object class
amount obligated (by object class) for each program activity
Reports preferred monthly but required quarterly
Reports due to begin 3 years after enactment

6. DATA Act – Definitions
Program Activity: A specific activity or project as listed in the program and financing schedules of the annual budget of the United States Government.
Object Class: The category assigned for purposes of the annual budget of the President submitted under section 1105(a) of title 31 USC, to the type of property or services purchased by the Federal Government.

7. DATA Act – Reporting Elements
OMB/Treasury have one year to define common data elements for financial and payment information:
Must include unique Federal identifier for awards
Does not specify reporting frequency, level of reporting (one tier of subawards, two tiers, etc).
OMB/Treasury must work with public and private stakeholders in developing standards
Agencies have two years after common data elements guidance is finalized to implement

8. DATA Act – Burden Reduction
Two-year pilot program to evaluate reporting
Make recommendations to
Standardize reporting elements,
Eliminate financial reporting duplication,
Reduce compliance costs
Automate financial reporting to increase efficiency and reduce recipient costs.
Include between $1 -$2 billion in Federal awards
Pilot must include data from a 12-month reporting cycle

9. DATA Act: FDP Role Development of Common Data Elements
Subaward reporting?
How many tiers?
Best way to handle reporting by subawardees?
Taking advantage of STAR Metrics?
Problem metrics – Must include real examples of the burden

10. DATA Act: FDP Role Pilot Participation
Which is simpler, piloting a few small institutions with many awards, or only a few awards but at many institutions?
Discuss results of GRIP pilot

11. DATA Act: FDP Role Reducing Burden of Financial and Payment Reporting
Use electronic systems – FDP eRA Subcommittee
Eliminate duplicative reporting?
Combining transparency and financial reporting?
Reducing audit/compliance burden?

12. Burden: From A Data Perspective
Richard Fenger:
Assistant Director - Decision Support Services in the Office of Research at the University of Washington
Identify data within the FSRS reporting process
Understand the effort required to report
Determine data requirements and related effort as it relates to audit standards

13. Goal: Demonstrate general effort of sub reporting via FSRS
Inherently the activity of sub reporting is more than just FSRS via FFATA regs. Other regulations like A133 apply
Systems: eSRS and FSRS
Process: Proposals to Awards, Reporting & Maintaining, Reconciliation, and Closing
Data transverses several systems beyond FSRS

14. Landscape: eSRS and FSRS
eSRS (Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System) This system is designed for prime contractors to report accomplishments toward subcontracting goals required by their contract.
FSRS (FFATA Sub-award Reporting System) – This system is designed to collect subcontract and sub- grant award information in compliance with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA).

15. Landscape: Process – Big Picture

16. Landscape: Process – Local Picture1 2 3 4

17. Process Simplified for Presentation
Preface: 700 or so…
Proposal & Award – (A133)
Defined process
Foreign or Domestic?
Profit or Non-profit?
Checklists
Subrecipient monitoring and vetting
Capability and reliability of subrecipient
Risk Assessment
FSRS Report Entry/Review & Maintenance 170 or so…
Pre-populated data and elements
30 mins per new report
15 min per maintenance activity (many per year) 1 2

18. Process Simplified for Presentation3
RECONCILIATION
Internal data to external data
Awards to expenditures
Common ID: Difficulties relating across systems
Errors: Manual Entry
Internal tracking my not match agency
Tiers?
Close-out 4

19. Reconciliation Process: Generally
FSRS

20. Reconciliation Process: Detailed

21. General Findings
Unique Identifier: among the three entities, even though NIH prime project number (six digits) is recognized in some level by the three reporting systems, each source uses an adaption of it. Finding matches required the inclusion of other fields like PI name or award amount
Across Systems: finding matches required the inclusion of other fields like PI name, award amount, or project name
Four of 20 grants: were found in SEFA, NIH and USA Spending reports using Sponsor contract identifier and using amount award for FY Between SEFA and internal systems, sub recipient matches were hard to come by
Effort: 1 FTE took 40 hours to match info. Process mostly manual

22. Questions? Thoughts?

23. Contact Info
First Name: Richard Last Name: Fenger
Organization:
University of Washington
Title:
Assistant Director - Decision Support Services
Department:
Office of Research Information Services (ORIS)
Address:
4333 Brooklyn Ave NE O2
City: Seattle State: WA Zip: 98195
Phone: (206) ext:  Fax: ()

24. Contact Info (continued
David Curren
Special Assistant to the OPERA Director