HHS seeks feedback on grants reporting standards
Connecting state and local government leaders
Public input on the Common Data Element Repository Library will help the agency standardize and streamline grants reporting.
As part of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, the Office of Management and Budget tasked the Department of Health and Human Services with creating a common system and data standards for grants reporting. The resulting Common Data Element Repository Library is designed to be an online searchable repository for grants-specific data standards, definitions and context to help agencies improve grant reporting and reduce the reporting burden for grant recipients.
The CDER Library officially consolidated its data elements sites for public and federal users into a single site on May 30. CDER 2.0 incorporates a comments feature to allow both federal and public users to provide input on any data element or form in the library. A new public user registration system allows comments on the 11,842 data elements from 220 associated grant forms.
“We want to get feedback on what this means from the public,” Michael Peckham, director of the DATA Act Program Management Office, said at the June 29 DATA Summit.
For OMB, Victoria Collin, acting chief of the Management Controls and Assistance Branch at the Office of Federal Financial Management, said the process is ongoing to collect feedback from various stakeholders.
“We are looking at what we have learned from all of the test models and actionable recommendations,” Collin said. “We are in the process of thinking about what we can do next, and there is going to be a report to Congress in August.”
With 60 percent of all federal grants administered by HHS, Amy Haseltine, executive director of the department’s Office of IT Strategy, Policy and Governance, said the challenge will be responding to the needs of grantees who can come from large university systems or local communities without any full-time staff.
“They have to report not just back to HHS on their programs, but also to other agencies,” Haseltine said. “I can only imagine what kind of burden it places on [smaller entities.]”
More information on CDER’s online searchable repository can be found here.