OMB lays out Grants.gov funding
A new formula outlines how much each agency should contribute to the initiative in the next two years.
FY 2004 Grants.gov Funding and Advance Planning Guidance for FY 2005 ? FY 2006
To help agency officials plan future funds for the Grants.gov e-government initiative, Office of Management and Budget officials now have a funding formula outlining how much each agency should contribute to the initiative in the next two years.
The memo, sent to chief financial officers and chief information officers today, details funding expectations for fiscal 2005 and 2006 to ease the transition to a fee-for-service model. Agencies' contributions are based on total grant dollars awarded. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services will give about $754,000 for the initiative, and the National Archives and Records Administration about $226,000, according to the memo.
"Federal agencies are encouraged to begin planning now to ensure a smooth transition to the fee-for-service model," the memo states. "Agencies should plan to transfer their FY 2005 funding within a month after the enactment of their FY 2005 appropriation."
The memo also provides guidance for the remainder of fiscal year 2004. Grants.gov, the Web portal for finding and applying for grants and one of the 24 e-government initiatives, transitioned into a new governmentwide effort known as the grants management line of business initiative. With that, contributing agencies focused the first six months of fiscal 2004 funding on the find and apply functions of Grants.gov. Now that that phase is complete, officials are focused on operation and maintenance, the memo states, and funding will reflect that.
"The transition of Grants.gov from development to utilization continues this goal of maximizing resources to achieve more effective results," states the memo, sent by OMB's controller, Linda Springer, and the agency's administrator for information technology and e-government, Karen Evans. "As part of this effort, OMB will work with agencies to identify FY 2004 development, modernization and enhancement funds that should be used to support Grants.gov."