During a joint hearing on Oct. 13 the administration told the joint Ways and Means and Senate Fiscal Affairs committees it received a $5.7 million award from the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA) and that part of the award is designated for Department of Finance IT infrastructure and Munis licensing.

Secretary of Finance said the OIA award was an interim one‑month allocation and identified three recipient categories: Department of Finance for IT infrastructure (Munis license and supporting IT costs), Department of Corrections for inmate care, and fuel and communications for government operations, with roughly $412,000 specified for some of those operational uses in the initial award. The secretary and OMB staff also said the administration had submitted a separate OIA technical assistance proposal (described in testimony as a $4.5 million proposal) to support audit catch‑up and other capacity needs, but that proposal remained pending and had no award number.

Treasury and the Office of Grants and Management described operational delays in drawing down federal funds. Treasury staff said the department has automated many drawdown steps but that grantor agencies on the federal side are taking longer to review drawdown justifications — a delay exacerbated by a federal government shutdown that produced slower responses from federal reviewers. Treasury’s representative (identified in testimony as Connie) said reviews can take from days to weeks and that many pending drawdown approvals are on the federal reviewer’s side, not locally.

The audit conversation overlapped with grants management concerns. Committee members cited a schedule of expenditures showing hundreds of millions in federal spending (treasury referenced roughly $527 million in FY2022) and questioned why auditors flagged sizable questioned costs in recent audits. Grants staff said many questioned costs relate to documentation not timely submitted or to program expansions during pandemics and disasters; staff stressed some findings are cleared once agencies provide needed supporting documentation and that the grants office has submitted extensions for several awards.

Committee members sought a written list of grants, their award amounts, expiration dates and any pending extensions. Office of Grants and Management staff agreed to provide a written package. The committee also asked for a status update on cleared and uncleared audit findings and for a report on how many extensions had been requested and granted.

Ending

Treasury and grants officials committed to providing the detailed grant list, documentation on questioned costs and a summary of outstanding audit findings to the committee. They emphasized many drawdown delays are federal review bottlenecks and said the administration is automating local processes and providing training to agency staff to reduce future questioned costs.