Streamlining grant reporting to keep track of $600 billion in annual grant awards is daunting, and the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency (GREAT) Act seeks to do just that.
On January 29, 2018, Representatives Virginia Foxx and Jimmy Gomez introduced the GREAT Act which sets out to modernize Federal grants by establishing reporting data standards for recipients. According to Foxx “this bill will ensure the modernization of reporting by grant recipients, by mandating a standardized data structure for the information that recipients must report to federal agencies”. The GREAT Act will promote consistency with accounting principles, improve data reuse , and increase transparency by enabling open data across the Federal government. Unlike prior bills, Foxx believes consultation with the grant recipient and software vendor communities will produce a successful piece of legislation.
