May 2007

Spotlight On FFATA

On September 26, 2006, the President enacted the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act ("FFATA") to reduce "wasteful and unnecessary spending" by requiring that OMB establish a free, public, online database containing full disclosure of all federal award information. The bill's co-sponsors were Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) and Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois). FFATA defines "federal award" to include "grants, sub-grants, loans, awards, cooperative agreements, and other forms of financial assistance" as well as "contracts, subcontracts, purchase orders, task orders, and delivery orders."

By January 1, 2008, FFATA requires reporting on entities that are awarded funds directly from the federal government. FFATA will include data sourced from FPDS, eSRS, and Grants.gov. The passage of this Act once again emphasizes the need to ensure that all data entered into FPDS and all the IAE systems is correct.

A proposed rule change to the FAR to allow for the FFATA pilot program was published in the March 21, 2007 Federal Register. In order to implement Section 2(d) of FFATA, the proposed rule will change FAR Part 4, with associated clauses in FAR Part 52, which addresses reporting subcontract awards. Exempted from the pilot are solicitations and contracts for commercial items issued under FAR Part 12 and classified solicitations and contracts. The pilot program is scheduled to begin July 1, 2007. This rule applies to contracts of $500,000,000 or greater and requires the awardees to report all first tier subcontract awards exceeding $1 million to the FFATA database at www.federalspending.gov.