See attached COGR’s comments to OMB on the grant regulatory reform initiatives which will be sent to OMB on April 27:

· Develop a mechanism to address the ongoing problem where agencies implement Arbitrary Cost Reimbursement Policies. These policies restrict reimbursement of selected payments and are manifested through F&A caps, “vague” requests designed to compel voluntary cost sharing, or other “creative” limitations (e.g., categorizing a cost item as a “subaward” rather than a vendor-purchase). If these agency practices go unchecked by OMB, the repercussion will be increasing institutional subsidies directed to specific research programs, at the expense of more strategic institutional investment in the research enterprise and other educational initiatives.

· Implement the COGR recommendation in the original June 28, 2011, NIH RFI: Formalize an F&A Rate Negotiation Model that is transparent, unambiguous, consistent and collaborative between the Federal government and Research Universities and Institutions.” Flat and/or Discounted F&A rates are not the solution. Instead, a “Collaborative Grants Policy Forum” could be utilized to implement reforms that would improve the F&A rate negotiation model.

· Require all agencies that fund research activities to adopt the January 2011 NSF policy that prohibits Voluntary Cost Sharing – this would provide important consistency across all research programs and activities. OMB should utilize an ongoing “Collaborative Grants Policy Forum” to establish a workgroup that includes representatives from OMB, the research funding agencies, research institutions, and appropriate representatives from the research community to develop the plan to implement the NSF model, government-wide.

· Implement the COGR recommendation in the original June 28, 2011, NIH RFI: “Create a Mandatory Cost Sharing Exemption for Research Universities and Institutions.” Mandatory cost sharing requirements, while appropriate in selected situations, generally are inappropriate for Federally-sponsored research, service, and educational programs. Managing mandatory cost sharing commitments is a manual and time-consuming process that requires onerous cost sharing record-keeping. It often is the subject of audit scrutiny, which requires significant university staff time to manage the audit and respond to auditors. When institutions are required to make mandatory cost sharing commitments, this results in the diversion of institutional financial resources away from the educational and public service missions of the institution, as well as from the strategic investment in the institution’s research enterprise.

· Establish a process to remove those FAR requirements that are more burdensome and are inconsistent with what is required for grants and cooperative agreements. For example, OMB should coordinate the elimination of FAR requirement (4.703), which requires retention of paper documents after imaging to permit periodic validation of the imaging system.

· Update the cost principles to allow prime awardees to recover F&A on the first $25,000 of each subgrant or subcontract for each and every year during the life of the project. While some of the reform ideas in the ANPG have potential to reduce the burden associated with the single audit and subrecipient monitoring, these activities will continue to be costly. And while simply permitting F&A recovery on an annual basis will not fully cover the costs associated with subrecipient monitoring, the COGR proposal provides some equity by recognizing the annual cost burden.

· Update the January 5, 2001 OMB Memorandum (M-01-06), Clarification of OMB A-21 Treatment of Voluntary Uncommitted Cost Sharing (VUCS) and Tuition Remission Cost. While M-01-06 has been helpful since its issuance in 2001, the definition VUCS should be clarified to include all expenditures, project cost overruns, salaries that exceed Executive Level salary limitations, and other similar uncommitted institutional cost sharing. An update to M-01-06 will provide consistency in the treatment of VUCS and will eliminate the unintended financial penalty incurred by institutions when expected to include non-reimbursable costs in the institution’s research base.

· Implement the COGR recommendation in the original June 28, 2011, NIH RFI: “Designate a high level official within OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to serve as a Federal Ombudsman, responsible for addressing university regulatory concerns and for seeking ways to increase regulatory efficiency.” The Ombudsman will be a critical point of contact to ensure frequent and effective contact between the Federal government and the research community – furthermore, the Ombudsman will serve as both a symbolic acknowledgement and practical implementation of the Administration's commitment to accountability and transparency in the Federal government.

· Implement the COGR recommendation in the original June 28, 2011, NIH RFI: “Through the use of Executive Branch Authority, provide targeted exemptions for Research Universities and Institutions similar to protections provided for small entities under the Regulatory Flexibility Act.” OMB should issue a clarification that the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) includes research organizations in the meaning of “small organization” [5USC§601 (4)].

Suzy

Suzanne Stroud, CRA, CPRA

Sr. Research Administrator, Post-award
Office of Contracts and Grants

Division of Research

University of Houston

xxxxxx@uh.edu

713-743-9626

<image001.png>

From: COGR [mailto:xxxxxx@usc.edu]
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 11:46 AM
To: COGR Email List
Subject: COGR DRAFT Response to Grants Reform ANPG

Attached is COGR’s DRAFT Response to OMB’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Guidance – Reform of Federal Policies Relating to Grants and Cooperative Agreements; Cost Principles and Administrative Requirements (Including Single Audit Act).

Responses are due by Monday, April 30, 2012.

The COGR DRAFT Response includes a significant portion of the text from the Template for COGR Member Responses to “Questions for Comment” (available at www.cogr.edu, see Home Page, Latest News, March 19, 2012). However, the COGR Response is centered around responses to Section II. Reform Ideas for Comment rather than directly answering the questions in Section III. Questions for Comment. We also have included several introductory comments in the COGR DRAFT, prior to our responses to each reform idea.

We expect to make some changes to the COGR DRAFT over the next couple of weeks, but expect those changes to be minor. If there are significant changes, we will immediately bring this to the attention of the COGR Membership.

You are welcome to use text from the COGR DRAFT, as well text from the Template, as you finalize your institutional responses. If you have comments, please do not hesitate to contact us.

David Kennedy
Director, Cost Policy - COGR
1200 New York Ave. NW, #750
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 289-6655, ext. 112
xxxxxx@cogr.edu

====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org (click on the "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)

A link directly to helpful tips: http://tinyurl.com/resadm-l-help ======================================================================