Accountability and Transparency Act passed.

• Author: Steffes, Peter M.
• Position: GOVERNMENT POLICY NOTES

Just before adjourning for the 2006 election, Congress enacted the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act and sent it to the president for signature. When fully implemented, this measure will affect all federal contracts, prime contractors and subcontractors. Following is a brief summary of its requirements.

The purpose of the new law is to increase transparency and accountability of federal expenditures by providing access to information on contract awards through a single, searchable, publicly available Web site. The measure requires the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that the site is up-to-date, easily searchable and available to the public at no cost. It requires the site to be fully accessible by January 1, 2008, when data for fiscal year 2007 should be posted. By January 1, 2009, the site is required to provide information on sub-grants and subcontracts.

The law, however, does give the OMB director the authority to extend, up to 18 months, the deadline for implementing the sub-award reporting requirement for recipients of federal funds through state, local and tribal governments. Individual award transactions below $25,000 are not required to be included on the site.

Specific elements of information about federal awards are required to be available on the site. These include the name of the recipient, award amount, award type (such as grant, contract or sub-contract), industry classification or catalog of federal domestic assistance indicator, location of the recipient and the primary place of performance, agency and program source, and detailed title and description of each award. In addition, the site must provide a unique identifier for each entity receiving federal funds.

The law includes a temporary sub-award reporting exemption for small entities that can demonstrate that they earned less than $300,000 in gross income in the previous tax year. These entities would not be required to report on sub-awards until the OMB director determines that the imposition of the reporting requirements would not create an undue burden on them.

In order to best determine the most cost-effective and efficient way to provide information on sub-awards, the law establishes a pilot program to test methods of sub-award data collection and reporting and to receive public feedback.

The federal government currently makes some information on its expenditures available through various databases and reports. These include the Federal...