Legislative Affairs

Earlier this month, the Biden-Harris Administration announced substantial updates to the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance, otherwise known as "Uniform Grants Guidance (UGG) for Federal Awards - 2 CFR 200." 

The updated guidance (final rule) aims to streamline and clarify requirements for Federal funding and will take effect on October 1, 2024. The Administration notes this is the most substantial revision to UGG since it went into effect ten years ago.

The updated UGG guidance:

• Instructs agencies to make grant announcements as clear and concise as possible to make it easier to access federal grant funding.
• Clarifies that recipients can use federal funds to invest in the continuous improvement of their programs by making clear that funding can be used to support quality evaluation, data gathering and analysis, and community engagement.
• Instructs agencies to engage affected communities-including nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and Tribal governments-as well as requiring recipients to use responsible contractors.
• Reduces administrative burden on award recipients by:
• Reducing unnecessary compliance costs.
• Removing barriers to entry.
• Ensuring federal assistance serves intended communities.

OMB also issued a related implementation memorandum that gives federal agencies instructions and tools to enact the new UGG by October. Specifically, the memo:

• Instructs federal agencies to simplify their notice of funding opportunities (NOFOs).
• Requires federal agencies to improve the descriptions of their programs in the Federal Program Inventory (FPI). The FPI is a new searchable tool with information on federal programs that provide grants, loans, and other financial assistance. It leverages existing government data from SAM.gov, USASpending.gov, Grants.gov, etc. to provide a user-friendly website for accessing federal assistance program information. (Learn more here.)
• Provides federal agencies ideas on how to increase accessibility, equity, flexibility, and utility of federal funding and support programs for Tribal Nations and Indians.

For more information about what's changing with UGG, check out this blog from the National League of Cities.