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Discretionary Grants: Further Tightening of Education's Procedures for Making Awards Could Improve Transparency and Accountability

GAO-06-268 Published: Feb 21, 2006. Publicly Released: Mar 03, 2006.
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Highlights

In the past 3 years, Education awarded an average of $4.8 billion annually in discretionary grants through its competitive awards process and through consideration of unsolicited proposals. GAO assessed Education's policies and procedures for both competitive awards and unsolicited proposals awarded by its Office of Innovation and Improvement in 2003 and 2004 and determined whether it followed them in awarding grants in those years. GAO also reviewed Education's grant award decisions for several 2001 and 2002 grants to determine whether the department followed its own policies.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education To address certain shortcomings in the department's grant-making policies through a variety of executive actions designed to promote fairness, enhance transparency, and provide greater access to funding opportunities and to improve the process for selecting and awarding grants based on unsolicited proposals, the Secretary of Education should develop a more systematic format to select unsolicited proposals for further consideration by peer reviewers.
Closed – Implemented
The Education Department reported in July 2008 that the Discretionary Grants Handbook was revised in December 2005 (final version dated 2/24/2006) and included detailed procedures for selecting proposals for future funding. Further revisions to the selection process recommended by a related study by GAO are also included. Department-wide training was offered on the revised handbook in February and March of 2006.
Department of Education To ensure fairness and improve transparency in the competitive grants process, the Secretary of Education should ensure that all competition plans are finalized before competitions begin and if a plan needs to be amended during a competition, the Secretary should provide assurances that any such amendment is justified in writing and has been approved by a senior department official.
Closed – Implemented
Education agreed with this recommendation and revised its "Handbook for the Discretionary Grant Process" to include more specific guidance about when competition plans should be developed and the requirements for amending such plans. The Handbook now specifies that if there is a need to amend the plan the program officer must provide a written justification for doing so and that the officer cannot proceed until the relevant Assistant Secretary approves the amendment.
Department of Education To ensure fairness and improve transparency in the competitive grants process, the Secretary of Education should implement departmental policy to screen all applicants for compliance with audit requirements before the award, and ensure that outstanding audit issues--if there are any--are addressed before making an award.
Closed – Implemented
Education has developed and tested an analysis tool that includes A-133 audit look-up capability, allowing program officers to analyze the slate of grantees and ensure any outstanding audit issues are addressed prior to making awards. ED put a notice in the Secretary's proposed priorities on August 5, 2010 that the agency could use past performance and will be using it as a selection criterion, putting grantees are on notice that aspects of management performance will be used in the selection process. The agency has already used information from the tool a few times under the Recovery Act for Race to the Top. It will start using the tool officially in a pilot on October 1, 2010 and, during the fiscal year, expand it to all grant programs.
Department of Education To ensure fairness and improve transparency in the competitive grants process, the Secretary of Education should take appropriate steps to ensure that program officers better document required checks such as budget analyses and eligibility screening.
Closed – Implemented
In March 2010, the Department of Education (ED) reported that it provides monitoring training to all program offices, however it does not plan to make it mandatory because the course is not in the position descriptions of grant staff employees or legally required. ED developed and offered a grant budget review class in FY07-08, which is standard in grants training offered by offices to their staff. Risk Management Service has assisted in staff training that included budget review. ED conducted and documented random checks of official grant files in 2007 to ensure that program officers were including appropriate documentation.

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Topics

Discretionary grantsEducational grantsGrant administrationGrant award proceduresInternal controlsPolicy evaluationPolicies and proceduresTransparencyGrant awardUnsolicited bids