Recovery Act: Consistent Policies Needed to Ensure Equal Consideration of Grant Applications

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Grants.gov is the central grant identification and application portal for the more than 1,000 federal grants programs offered by 26 federal grant-making agencies and organizations. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) created Grants.gov, to streamline administrative grant application requirements and reduce the burden on applicants, among other things. On March 6, 2009, Grants.gov began posting specific grant opportunities provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). As a result, submissions have escalated to an unprecedented level. During the first week in April, Grants.gov processed almost 11,500 applications, or about three times the weekly average number of submissions in fiscal year 2008. One day that week Grants.gov accepted 3,555 applications--the largest 1-day total to date. On March 9, 2009, OMB notified federal agencies that over the past several months Grants.gov had experienced increased activity beyond what was originally anticipated by the system, which had at times resulted in noticeably degraded performance. OMB further noted that given the expected increase in application volume because of the Recovery Act, the system was at significant risk of failure, thus potentially hampering Recovery Act implementation. To reduce demand on the Grants.gov system and to assist applicants in the short term, OMB instructed federal grant-making agencies to identify alternate methods for accepting grant applications during the peak period of the Recovery Act, with a focus on minimizing any disruption to the grants application processes. OMB and agencies estimate that this peak period will last from April through about August 2009. Alternate methods for applying include agency-specific electronic systems (i.e., non-Grants.gov electronic systems run by a grantor agency), e-mail, fax, and mail. On April 8, 2009, OMB issued another memorandum stating that the existing Grants.gov infrastructure will not be able to handle the influx of applications expected as key Recovery Act deadlines approach. OMB said that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal agency that operates and maintains Grants.gov, and the General Services Administration (GSA), which serves as the facilitator of governmentwide solutions, are working together to initiate urgent improvements to the system, and that each grant-making agency is being asked to cover a proportionate share of these improvements. Based on our ongoing work on Grants.gov, Congress asked us to issue two reports: one immediately on our initial observations on improving grant submission policies that could help minimize disruptions to the grants application process during the Recovery Act's peak filing period, and the second in June 2009 addressing in more detail systemic issues with Grants.gov and implications of varying agency policies for processing application submissions.