From: The Federal Demonstration Partnership
Colleagues,
As announced today in the Federal Register, https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/09/10/2015-22074/universal-identifier-and-system-of-award-management-corrections, a second year has been added to the grace period for implementation of the Procurement Standards, 200.317 through 200.326, of the Uniform Guidance (UG). From the summary:
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is correcting the final guidance that appeared in the Federal Register on September 14, 2010 (75 FR 55673) and December 26, 2013 (78 FR 78589). OMB is amending the guidance to make technical corrections where needed. ...
Guidance on effective/applicability date is revised to allow a grace period of two fiscal years for non-Federal entities to implement changes to their procurement policies and procedures in accordance with guidance on procurement standards.
For an institution with a June 30th fiscal year-end, this means implementation is not required until July 1, 2017.
On behalf of the FDP membership, FDP leadership would like to thank those of you who participated in the surveys conducted to collect procurement data from your institutions. This data provided persuasive evidence that the procurement standards as currently written in the UG need further analysis and discussion. This was a very important factor in OMB's decision to extend the grace period because it provided data that showed the impact of the UG standards. We are hopeful that this extension to the grace period will allow for consideration of a more practical approach to ensuring procurement actions using federal dollars are reasonable.
Cindy Hope
Chair
Federal Demonstration Partnership
For more information on changes to procurement standards resulting from the Uniform Guidance and the impact at the University of Maryland, see the procurement sections under Important Changes to the UG and Open Issues.