Federal Single Point of Contact

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Governor Patrick    FY2011 House 2 Budget Recommendation:
    Issues in Brief

    Deval L. Patrick, Governor
    Timothy P. Murray, Lt. Governor

 

Single Point of Contact

Federal Executive Order 12372 “Intergovernmental Review of Federal Programs” encourages states to utilize a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for federal funding oversight.  The increased flow of funds from the federal government to the state government since the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in February 2009 underscores the importance of creating a Commonwealth Federal Single Point of Contact (SPOC) unit.  In addition, the creation of this unit will be an important element in ensuring that federal assistance is properly managed after the phase- out of the Massachusetts Recovery and Reinvestment Office, which was created specifically to manage federal ARRA funds. The state needs to ensure that proper mechanisms are in place to maximize federal resources, increase coordination among agencies, and provide enhanced transparency for federal grant spending. 

The Governor’s fiscal year 2011 budget recommends the creation of a new administrative SPOC unit within the Executive Office for Administration and Finance (A&F) to monitor and track federal assistance to executive agencies. Some of the examples of federal assistance that will be examined include: grants, Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAP) reimbursement, entitlement programs, economic recovery stimulus funds and other reimbursement. 

In this time of economic downturn, the Commonwealth realizes the importance of securing and properly utilizing federal stimulus dollars, grants and all federal funding that the state is eligible to receive. The Commonwealth’s SPOC unit will help to address inefficiencies and duplication of effort among state agencies. Currently, each sate agency applies for and administers federal grants without the benefit of any statewide coordination. The fiscal year 2010 General Appropriation Act (GAA) includes $2.1 billion in federal grants, and the fiscal year 2011 House 2 budget includes $2.6 billion in federal grants, approximately 9% of the total state budget. Furthermore, the state receives over $8 billion in federal revenues to support the state budget, mainly through services offered by the MassHealth program.  In order to better track, monitor and spend federal funding, the SPOC unit will work collaboratively with grant staff already working in Executive agencies to ensure proper use of and compliance with federal funding.

Massachusetts Current Federal Grant Work

There are varying levels of need to support federal funding within specific departments; for example, the Department of Public Health (approximately $271.6 million in fiscal year 2011 federal grant funding) may need more support than the Department of Revenue (approximately $232,000 in federal grant funding). A&F Bulletin number 3 (Federal Grant Administration (ANF 3)) outlines the process for identifying federal grant funding. However, creating the SPOC unit will give A&F the resources to more thoroughly review, research and track federal funding streams. The proposed structure of this unit is as follows:

This picture is a depiction of the proposal to create a single point of contact unit at the Executive Office for Administration and Finance to administer and review federal funding. The picture demonstrates that the Executive Office for Adminstration and Finance, SPOC unit will serve as the coordinating and oversight role for the state Secretariats and the federal government.  In addition, the picture shows that agencies will be applying directly for federal grants and that awarded funds will be flowing from the federal government to the state agencies, and not through the Executive Office of Administation and Finance.

The SPOC will allow the Commonwealth to leverage federal funds by:

The SPOC unit will be funded through fringe benefit charges collected by the comptroller on federal grants and assigned to item 1599-5050.  These charges will total $300,000 statewide in fiscal year 2011 and will be used to fund the unit.

Reporting

ARRA imposed new reporting and transparency requirements on the state with respect to the use of ARRA grant funds.  The Massachusetts Recovery and Reinvestment Office has developed the systems to meet these requirements, and it has done so in a way that will allow us to expand the use of those systems for other federal grant programs.  The SPOC unit will take advantage of the work of the Massachusetts Recovery and Reinvestment Office to enhance our reporting and transparency related to other federal grants


Prepared by Brian Gosselin and Candace Reddy, Executive Office for Administration and Finance ·
www.mass.gov/budget/governor
For more information contact: contactanf@massmail.state.ma.us (617) 727-2040