Janet Rosenzweig,Research Fellow, Harvard’s Kennedy School

Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government Bill Levis, Urban Institute

NGP Webcast, March 31 2009

The Added Value of Activity Codes

FFATA

Searchable database of grants, contracts and other types of federal contracts, assistance and other payments available at www.usaspending.gov

Purpose of grant is identified by CFDA code, which does not describe the activities undertaken by the recipient.

Purpose of Initial ResearchExplore potential improvements in the utility of the FFATA

database of grants made federal agencies by the adding a field to classify data by activity For Example…..

a public administrator could identify all funds coming into a states for activities related to a multi-disciplinary services such as prevention of child abuse through family support services, or prevention of juvenile delinquency

a public administrator could identify all funds coming into a specific city, county or state by location and category to support budgets planning

Example: CFDA Codes relevant to family support services –HHS only93.551: Abandoned Infants93.995: Adolescent Family Life Demonstration Pr

ojects93.670: Child Abuse and Neglect Discretionary A

ctivities93.643: Children's Justice Grants to States93.974: Family Planning Service Delivery Improv

ement Research Grants93.926: Healthy Start Initiative93.136: Injury Prevention and Control Research

and State and Community Based Programs93.556: Promoting Safe and Stable Families

What’s Missing?A description of WHAT activities the recipient is

conducting!

The addition of activity codes can make this database remarkably useful for state and local planning and coordination.

Opportunities The continued development of the FFATA database

presents an opportunity to further the existing NGP objective of establishing uniform object expense categories and definitions for grant budgeting and reporting by adding uniform activity codes to federal CFDA program classification.

Current interest by OMB in expanding the utility of the CFDA coding scheme presents a unique opportunity for collaboration

There will be a tracking system from ARRA funds

For Background Information on NGP’s Uniform Guidelines Initiative

In November 2004, the Uniform Guidelines Coalition (co-sponsored by the NGP) released Uniform Data Elements and Definitions for Grant Budgeting and Financial Reporting, Version 1 (UDED) -- http://www.nasact.org/downloads/11_04-UDED_v1.pdf

Updating the CFDA*

A ‘federal domestic assistance program’ is identified in terms of its legal authority, administering office, funding, purpose, benefits, and beneficiaries.

New CFDA version will be up-to-date, electronic and searchable.

Standard codes do not exist to identify purpose, benefits and beneficiaries; adding them to the new version of the catalog will increase the utility.

*Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance

Tracking Recovery Act FundsSection Reporting Requirement

2.2 Major communications 2.3 Formula block grant allocation reports 2.4 Initial weekly reports to help populate early

phases of Recovery.gov 2.5 Monthly financial reports 2.6 Award-level reporting consistent with

what is currently required for USAspending.gov

2.7 Agency-wide Recovery Act plans 2.8 Program-specific Recovery Act plans 2.9 Recipient reporting Starting 7/10/09

Source; recovery.gov

Can we identify a consistent taxonomy?

•There is no perfect taxonomy!•Programs/services are described very differently that infrastructure

projects•What will end users want from

these systems?

Existing Taxonomy -- NTEE National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities –

The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) system is used by the IRS and NCCS National Center for Charitable Statistics to classify nonprofit organizations. It is also used by the Foundation Center to classify both grants and grant recipients (typically nonprofits or governments). NCCS and the IRS use the NTEE-CC system …while the Foundation Center uses a slightly different version with more codes, as well as "population/beneficiary" codes to indicate the type of population served and "auspice" codes to indicate religious or governmental affiliation.

• Includes Codes to identify target populations• Stongly recommended for th FFATA database; in use by 2 million non profit organizations

http://nccs.urban.org/classification/NTEE.cfm

Existing Taxonomy -- NAICS

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.

NAICS was developed under the auspices of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and adopted in 1997 to replace the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. It was developed …. to allow for a high level of comparability in business statistics among the North American countries.

NCCS has developed a cross-walk between NAICS and NTEE

Type or Purpose of Funding Matters

NTEE codes may be more applicable to operating/service grants and contracts.

NAICS codes may be more applicable to capital grants and contacts.

NTEE population codes may be universally applicable to identify target groups.

Next StepsConduct focus groups of end users of the CFDA and

FFATA databases.Articulate the ways the databases may be used to ensure

that the future development is directed to meeting those needs.

Are NGP members interested?

Maintain collaboration between teams working on the CFDA, FFATA and ARRA databases

For More InformationBill Levis, Urban Institute

qrlevis@aol.com

Janet Rosenzweig MS, PhD, MPA Janet_Rosenzweig@ksg08.harvard.edu

Marguerite PridgenMarguerite_E._Pridgen@omb.eop.gov

Thank you!