Author: Roger Wood

In an August 9th memorandum from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), a component of the Office of Management and Budget, the Obama administration instructed federal agencies to “engage in advance testing of information collections” – the forms we all fill out regularly for grant applications, taxes, etc. The purpose of this requirement is to help ensure that agencies are doing everything possible to minimize complexity and confusion for users in filling out government forms.

The memorandum instructs agencies to test forms “in order (1) to ensure that they are not unnecessarily complex, burdensome, or confusing, (2) to obtain the best available information about the likely burdens on members of the public (including small businesses), and (3) to identify ways to reduce burdens and to increase simplification and ease of comprehension.”

Agencies may use focus groups, observation, web-based experimentation, and randomized controlled experiments or other appropriate means to fulfill this obligation either before or during the public comment period associated with information collections based on the Paperwork Reduction Act.

The memorandum identifies various types of information collections where such testing may be particularly relevant including applications to obtain permits, licenses, benefits and grants. Could this eventually signal a re-evaluation of the 424/424RR grant application forms? Research administrators and principal investigators will have to wait and see.

A new report published by the Grattan Institute, written by Andrew Norton, titled “Graduate Winners”, proposes that:

Most students should pay more for higher education, given how
much they benefit from a degree. By the middle of this decade,
tuition subsidies will cost taxpayers around $7 billion. Yet it is not
clear why the public should pay. It is time for a new approach.

Australian higher education costs are subsidized by the government, with the subsidy amount varying by discipline. In this report, Mr. Norton runs the numbers and demonstrates that there are cases where the public benefit outweighs these subsidy costs and other cases where they do not. His proposal would, over a phase-in period, save about $3 billion annually, with those costs being borne by students generally in the form of loans.

Mr. Norton makes the case that most students would not be dissuaded from pursuing their higher education by these additional costs. This is contrary to what is being observed in the England. In a report from the Independent Commission on Fees just published, total university applicants numbers have dropped by nearly 9% – 37,000 fewer applicants – in the first year of higher fees. While some of the decline in applicants can be explained by declining numbers of college-age youth in the population, it seems clear that rising costs are a significant factor.

Andrew Trounson, writing in The Australian, argues that “The HECS system could ‘break’ if student fees rise too high as a result of cuts to government subsidies…”. As prospective students weigh the pros and cons, as they see their loans stretch out before them for fifteen to twenty years and begin to impact other life activities such as home purchases, the value of higher education may lose some of its luster.

A new study recently published by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on this topic (NSF 12-235, Collaboration in Academic R&D: A Decade of Growth in Pass-Through Funding) demonstrates an increase in research collaboration. In 2009, pass-through funds represented 7% of total academic R&D expenditures compared with 5% in FY 2000. These data were derived from the NSF annual Survey of R&D Expenditures at Universities and Colleges.

Pass-through funding was noted to be heavily concentrated in the most research-intensive universities, with approximately 72% of total academic R&D expenditures passed through to others by this group. A small set of major public and private universities gave and received a significant percentage of the total dollar value of pass-through funding over the period 2000-2009. When looked as as a percentage of total R&D expenditures of the institution rather than simply as total dollars, there was significantly more diversity the the types of institutions that reported high rates of giving or receiving pass-through funds.

Approximately 85% of pass-through funds reported came from federal awards. The percentage of pass-through funds received by public schools remained largely constant over the period 2000-2009, however private schools share of federal pass-through funds increased from 68% in 2000, to 78% in 2009.

These data corroborate what I think we all recognize anecdotally, that inter-institutional research collaboration in research activity is growing in importance and that is true at both large and small institutions. It should be no surprise then, that increasing scrutiny is placed on tracing those pass-through funds through the sub recipient monitoring activities associated with Recovery Act funds and likely to be codified broadly if and when the DATA Act becomes law.

CCR (the Central Contractor Registration) will transition to SAM at the end of July. CCR must stop accepting new data in order to successfully migrate the existing data into SAM. CCR’s last business day is Tuesday, July 24, 2012. It will no longer accept new registrations or updates to current registrations after that time. The CCR Search capability will remain active through the transition to allow you to search for an entity’s current registration status. SAM will be online for use Monday morning, July 30, 2012.

More information on the System for Award Management is available in this Grants.gov post or on the SAM.gov website.

The US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing on July 18th: Show Me the Money: Improving the Transparency of Federal Spending. The purpose of this hearing was to hear from Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA; lead sponsor on the Senate version of the DATA Act); Eugene Dodaro (Comptroller General of the United States); Daniel Werfel (Controller, Office of Management and Budget); Richard Gregg (Fiscal Assistant Secretary US Treasury) on their impressions of the DATA Act in response to the recent passage of the House version of the bill and concerns that have been voiced by various Governors and others.

Opinions varied regarding the necessity for additional legislation in the form of the DATA Act in general and on specifics within that bill. Sen Warner indicated that his “opinion has evolved over the past year” regarding the need for a new government entity – the Government Accountability and Transparency Board – and he plans to re-introduce the legislation to reflect his updated priorities and thinking in the Senate.
According to the Data Transparency Coalition, Sen Tom Coburn (R-OK) indicated that he would work with Sen Warner to update the Senate bill working toward its eventual passage.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published in February, 2011 found numerous examples of overlap and potentially unnecessary duplication in government programs or activities. They concluded that potentially billions oft tax dollars could be saved annually by “reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation and addressing these other cost savings opportunities.” This GAO report was the impetus for the Taxpayers Right to Know Act (H.R. 3609), sponsored by Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) and its Senate companion bill S. 1957, sponsored by Sen. Thomas Coburn (R-OK).

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office published its report on the cost to implement H.R.3609, finding that its implementation would cost around $100 million over a five year period. The legislation calls for “government agencies to identify and describe each program they administer, the cost to administer the program, expenditures for services, the number of program beneficiaries, and the number of federal employees and contract staff involved. Under the bill, that information would be posted on each agency’s Web site. In addition, H.R. 3609 would require an annual report by the Office of Management and Budget that identifies duplicative federal programs.”

This situation is similar to that of the DATA Act, which the CBO estimates will cost $575 million over 5 years.

Both these bills are focused on increasing transparency in government, which as taxpayers I think we all value. However, transparency comes at a real cost, which must be weighed against the value returned. Taken together, these two actions would cost taxpayers $135 million per year. In government terms, that may be a small sum, but it is real money and, as we hear every day in the news (and feel in our pockets) – times are tight. Is the transparency afforded by these pending laws worth their cost? Maybe – but I don’t hear that question being discussed. Unfortunately, our Senators and Representatives seem too focused on one-upping their opponents and winning elections to have a cost-benefit discussion that isn’t poisoned by political rhetoric.

An item in Fedblog at the Government Executive website notes that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who heads the Government Oversight and Reform panel which fostered the DATA Act to passage in the House of Representatives on April 26, 2012, noted that “it’s died in the Senate”. Technically, the Senate bill, sponsored by Mark Warner (D-VA) remains pending in the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee and no formal action has been scheduled. Due to its broad bipartisan support, passage was predicted for the DATA Act in both the House and Senate. It may simply be that the poison politics of an rough-and-tumble election year are getting in the way of its passage. If passed, the DATA Act will change the landscape of federal assistance reporting significantly affecting research institutions and research administrators as well as federal agencies.

In a new report published by the National Research Council, increased funding to research universities was identified as critically important to maintaining their global preeminence, and a “grand bargain” was suggested that would involve academia, government, and industry in increasing support, cutting costs, training more scientists and engineers, reducing regulatory burden, and forming more partnerships.

Research Universities and the Future of America: Ten Breakthrough Actions Vital to Our Nation’s Prosperity and Security is the result of a two-year long study undertaken in response to a request from Senators Lamar Alexander and Barbara Mikulski
and Representatives Bart Gordon and Ralph Hall, a bipartisan group seeking a follow-up report to the National Academies’ 2007 report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, which formed the basis of the America COMPETES Act.

The report highlights the need for a strong partnership between universities, federal and state governments and industry. Increased funding to universities is critical to maintaining global preeminence. State and federal governments and industry will need to provide that funding, and in exchange universities will need to improve management, productivity and cost efficiency in both administration and academics.

Over all, the panel’s goals for changes by universities, businesses, and governments may be too optimistic, said Lou Anna K. Simon, president of Michigan State University, who was not a member. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, Ms. Simon said. A truly worthwhile goal, she said, is “never viewed as realistic.” [Chronicle of Higher Education]

MeriTalk, an online community focused on US government IT issues, looked at the nexus of technology adoption in personal life vs. work life and published their findings in Consumer Crossover: Me, Myself and IT.

This study looks at adoption of new technologies – such as smart phones, tablets, social media, and cloud storage – in people’s personal lives and at work. Because MeriTalk is a group devoted to US federal employees and IT technology, the people surveyed were limited to that group, however, it seems reasonable to think that findings in this group would largely mimic those of typical university employees as well on this topic.

The study found, not too surprisingly, that people tend to adopt new technologies in their personal lives more quickly than those same technologies are adopted – or embraced – at their workplace. Further, it was noted that employees wish the technologies they use at work would keep up with the technologies they use in their personal lives (67%). Perhaps the most interesting finding in this study is that age was not a primary variable in technology adoption, with 76% of people age 56-66 using online sources for news for more than three years and 63% having used social media for more than three years. Nearly 80% of surveyed people age 56-66 used some form of video conferencing, a slightly larger rate of use than for respondents in the 36-55 age group.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced via the Federal Register on June 11, 2012, that they will be implementing the expenditure data portion of the Federal Financial Report (FFR) via the eRA Commons effective October 1, 2012. The CDC implementation mirrors that of the NIH implementation of the FFR that was effective Feb 1, 2011. Additional details are provided in the Federal Register notice and in  NOT-OD-017.