On September 14, 2010, OMB issued two regulations implementing the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 requirements applicable to recipients of federal financial assistance. The first (pdf.) requires (among other things) that for any new award made after October 1, 2010, applicants and recipients of grants and cooperative agreements must register in the Central Contractor Registration (“CCR”), and the second (pdf.) requires (among other things) that recipients of grants and other forms of federal financial assistance must – subject to a few limitations that generally mirror those in the FAR – provide information about recipient executive compensation, first-tier subawards over $25,000, and subrecipient executive compensation.

It will be particularly interesting to see how State agencies and educational institutions handle these new requirements. According to the Preamble to the second regulation mentioned above, some State agencies have already expressed concern that the increased administration costs would deplete resources available for public purposes and some have suggested that the new requirement is an unfunded mandate. Similarly, some institutions of higher education noted that the limitation in OMB Circular A-21 on recovery of indirect costs could prevent them from recovering increased administration costs from their Federal awards sure to be incurred to comply with these new requirements.