Overview
On Wednesday, June 17 at 2:00 pm ET, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, in partnership with NACo, NLC, GFOA, ICMA, and IMLA, hosted a webinar providing a substantive overview of the proposed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rule that would dramatically revise the Uniform Guidance governing all federal financial assistance. The proposed rule would impose significant new policy requirements on cities and other local governments that would increase compliance risks and subject grants to cancellation or delay by political appointees of agencies. The OMB’s final rule is scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2026. A webinar recording can be found here and slides can be found here.
Key impacts for local governments include:
- Reclassifying the Uniform Guidance from guidance to a binding regulation.
- Expanding federal agencies’ authority to terminate or delay awards.
- Establishing a new merit review process that considers presidential priorities and an applicant’s “history of questionable practices.”
- Allowing political appointees to exclude grant proposals from consideration if the proposal is not consistent with the Administration and federal agency priorities.
- Implementing stricter subaward reporting to SAM.gov and additional pass-through entity oversight responsibilities.
- Requiring recipients to include written justifications describing the purpose of each payment and award-related work it supports.
USCM strongly urges cities to submit public comments to register their questions and concerns here. To the extent possible, comments should include specific examples of how the rule would negatively impact your city and its ability to manage federal assistance effectively. Comments should be submitted by Monday, July 13 at 11:59 PM ET.
If you have any questions, please contact Dave Gatton.
Webinar: Understanding the Proposed Rewrite of 2 CFR: What the OMB Uniform Guidance Proposed Rule Means for Local Governments
Click here to view the slides in the video.