The Office of Management and Budget has issued preliminary instructions Nov. 9 to agencies on how to report contract, grant and other types of financial data for inclusion in the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) system.
In a memo to agency secretaries, Robert Shea, OMB’s associate director for management, said the administration will issue a final policy when it launches the database by Jan. 1, 2008.
“To ensure we are leveraging existing systems, functionality and available data to the fullest extent, we are requesting agencies examine their current processes for submitting contract data to [the General Services Administration’s] Federal Procurement Database System (FPDS)-Next Generation (NG), and processes for submitting grants, loans and other data to the Census Bureau’s Federal Assistance Award Database and ensure that all data are submitted in full accordance with system user guidelines,” Shea wrote. “Data submitted and posted to these systems in the past has been incomplete, untimely and inaccurate.”
GSA, acting as OMB’s procurement arm, awarded the contract to construct the FFATA database to Global Computing Enterprises in October for $0. GCE also runs FPDS-NG.
Congress gave OMB deadline of Jan. 1, 2008, to launch a publicly searchable database with all grant, contract and loan transactions.
“The necessary procedures for collecting and populating these new data will tax the current business processes for administering and reporting on different types of funding mechanisms,” Shea wrote. “As a result, OMB’s strategy for receiving and posting Transparency Act data is significantly tailored to different funding types, and it is imperative for agencies to closely review the following specific guidelines for submitting diverse funding mechanisms to OMB’s Web site.”
The memo lays out specific steps each agency must take to submit each type of data.
For example, OMB details five steps for contract data, They include reviewing all fiscal 2007 and 2008 data submitted to FPDS-NG, submitting all 2007 and 2008 data to GSA for posting by Nov. 30, and by Dec. 1 identifying any gaps for submitting data for transactions worth more than $25,000, an agency plan on how to close those deficiencies and quality and assurance measures to meet the plan.
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