The new grant regulations are not just about a bunch of new definitions and certifications, it’s also about policy goals that the federal government Family Friendly Policies has for your award.
What are those policy goals?
The first one has to do with promoting women in science, technology, engineering and math fields.
Wondering how this impacts your organization?
We’ll lay out 3 steps you need to take to include family-friendly policies in your grant management.
Step One: Encourage More Family-Friendly Policies
Do you find it is difficult to balance your personal responsibilities and contribute successfully to projects and programs funding by Federal awards?
If you said “yes” the OMB agrees with you!
The new “super-circular” has made it simpler to support family-friendly leave policies in your fringe benefits.
Specifically, the new guidance explicitly allows family leave provided:
• The costs are reasonable
• The leave is paid based on established written leave policies
• Costs are equitably allocated to all related activities, including Federal Awards
Sound good so far?
The uniform guidance goes even further…
Step Two: Encourage More Family-Friendly Conferences
Do you believe it’s hard for employees to participate in out-of-town seminars while balancing their family responsibilities?
If fact, having the “realistic” opportunity to attend external meetings conferences was one of the focus areas cited in the change in grant management policies.
Comments received by COFAR showed wide agreement that dependent care costs were a big deterrent to women attending scientific symposium and seminars.
In the desire to promote diversity in the conference population, costs for identifying locally available dependent-care resources are now allowable as part of conference costs.
• Watch this because the costs for actually providing dependent-care are not included in allowable conference spending.
• However, the Federal awarding agency does have flexibility to authorize exceptions where appropriate for some programs involving children, the elderly and Indian tribes.
So are you wondering what good identifying resources, but not providing them does to promote inclusion of women in scientific and technology fields?
You are in luck.
We dug deeper to find the next step in the new family-friendly policies.
Step Three: Encourage More Family-Friendly Travel
The new uniform guidance broadens allowable travel costs to support the allowability of temporary dependent care costs.
Sound too good to be true?
You’re right.
There are restrictions including:
• The costs must be above and beyond regular dependent care.
• The costs must be temporary and a direct result of attending a conference.
• The costs must be directly related to the individual’s travel for the Federal award
• The costs need to be consistent with the non-Federal entity’s travel policy for all travel (not just the Federal award.)
And don’t get carried away…
Costs for dependent travel are still unallowable to charge the Federal award.
What Else is Changing in Grant Management?
Are you wondering what else is changing?
We’ve been digging through the new grant regulations looking for all the “gotchas” and MyFedTrainer is there to support you every step of the way.
Ready to Improve Your Grant Management?
How about you?
Would you like to be a better grant manager?
We have another grant management training seminar coming soon.
Click here to get all the details!
Hope to see you there!
Author:
Lucy Morgan CPA, MBA
CEO, Compliance Warrior
Author of “Decoding Grant Management-The Ultimate Success Guide to the Federal Grant Regulations in 2 CFR Part 200” The 2nd Edition is now available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle versions.
