Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Grants Management topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee lays over grants-management bill after administration flags scope of payment oversight
Summary
Representative Quam introduced House File 3672, consolidating audit-driven grants-management reforms; Department of Administration supports most changes but warned Section 3 could unintentionally regulate procurement payments, prompting the author to work with the auditor and reviser and lay the bill over for redrafting.
Representative Quam opened the committee’s grants-management segment by moving House File 3672 and describing it as a collection of audit-driven changes meant to tighten oversight and reduce opportunities for inappropriate activity.
An assistant commissioner from the Department of Administration, who identified herself as Betsy, told the committee that sections 5 through 11 strengthen the Office of Grants Management by bolstering reporting, monitoring and training requirements and by clarifying conflict-of-interest limits. She said the Administration “supports” those changes and has been collaborating with the Office of the Legislative Auditor on them.
Betsy flagged a concern with Section 3, which would subject “appropriations, allocations, payments or other transfers of money from the state to an entity that is not a state agency or political subdivision” to the Chapter 16B grants-management framework. She warned that, as written, the language could capture procurement payments and create “a much larger scope than what is intended, resulting in a large fiscal impact and conflicting regulatory overlap.” She said the Administration and the auditor have a meeting scheduled to refine the language.
Representative Quam said the intent of the bill is to address recurring audit findings and that he expected to work directly with the auditor and reviser to clarify the statutory language. The committee laid HF 3672 over so those discussions can occur and to give authors time to incorporate agreed revisions.
The committee did not take final action on the bill at the hearing; members asked for clarified statutory text and fiscal implications before returning the measure for further consideration.
