HHS, Treasury, and Interior Departments and the Executive Office of the President Aim to Reduce Administrative Burden for Tribal Grant Recipients

In New Report, Interagency Team Identifies Barriers to Compliance in Post-Award Reporting and Offers Solutions Shown to be Effective in Pilot Project

The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Treasury, and Interior, in partnership with the Executive Office of the President, released a report detailing findings from the Tribal CX Pilot for Post-Award Reporting project. The report provides an in-depth overview of the impact of piloted solutions to assist with grant reporting compliance, and future focus areas to support agencies as they work toward effective policy for the economic growth of Tribal Nations. A copy of the Tribal CX Pilot for Post-Award Reporting report can be found here.

Tribal Nations receive critical federal funding for health care, education, housing, public safety, infrastructure and other essential services as part of the Nation’s treaty and trust responsibilities. Yet, Tribes often struggle to comply with grant reporting requirements due to the lack of reliable broadband, high costs associated with submitting performance reports, and limited staff capacity.

Consistent with Executive Order 14112, (Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations to Better Embrace Our Trust Responsibility and Promote the Next Era of Tribal Self-Determination) and Executive Order 14058 (Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government), the interagency Tribal CX Pilot team worked to identify barriers to compliance reporting for Tribal grant recipients, then developed and tested improvements focused on customer experience to lessen burdens and support Tribal reporting in rural and underserved areas.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for communities to receive and implement grants. That’s why we have been working across the government to alleviate the burden on Tribal Nations to comply with grant reporting requirements,” said HHS Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources Lisa Molyneux. “We now have real solutions for Tribal Nations that alleviate the burden associated with post-award reporting, provide greater grant data transparency, and give grant recipients new and simplified reporting tools. The Biden-Harris Administration will continue working to strengthen our relationship with Tribal Nations and improve customer experience for their communities.”

“This project is a step in the right direction to reduce friction and barriers to effective grants management for Tribal Nations. Tribal Nations know their needs and communities better than anyone else, and giving them streamlined access and alternative methods of reporting will pay dividends on growing capacity and preserving capital. The savings realized through simplified grant compliance enable Tribal Nations to stretch their dollars and reinvest in their communities,” said U.S. Treasurer Chief Lynn Malerba. “We now have a path forward to continue to expand access to capital for Indian Country through capital access programs including the CDFI Fund. I applaud the work the Tribal CX Pilot team did to reach out to Indian Country to arrive at a solutions-based framework to ensure continued access to critical federal grant funding.”

“The Tribal CX Pilot and this report are part of the continued steps we are taking towards lowering the barriers Indigenous communities have long faced to gaining access to federal resources,” said Interior Department Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Wizipan Garriott. “Across the federal government, we want to make sure that we’re not just delivering more resources for Indian Country, but that they are getting to Indian Country.”

The pilot project focused on ways to improve the technology and knowledge gaps related to grant reporting with the goal of reducing burden and supporting equitable compliance for Tribes. The Tribal CX Pilot team conducted interviews with Tribal recipients, organizations, non-profits, and federal/state agencies, which led to identifying five key needs of Tribes that must be addressed in tandem to transform post-award reporting outcomes.

The Tribal CX Pilot team selected and piloted four solutions to address the major grant reporting challenges:

1. Treasury’s Office of Tribal and Native Affairs partnered with the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program to find a reporting alternative for Tribes that lack access to reliable high-speed internet. An offline compliance report template was designed with usability at the forefront to accommodate remote Tribes with unreliable internet.
2. To help with capacity building, HHS piloted the Federal Grant Systems Hub, a searchable public dashboard that simplifies access for hard-to-find grant-related information by centralizing grant data and systems resources, tailored to individual recipient organizations. This first of its kind resource will improve data transparency and systems access for all federal grant recipients.
3. To simplify reporting, the Tribal CX Pilot team analyzed post-award reports collected by the Indian Health Service (IHS). As a result, IHS has reduced the recipient reporting burden by 64%, reducing the estimated time for report completion from 8.9 hours to 3.2.
4. The Tribal CX Pilot Team engaged with government and private sector identity verification providers to remove barriers that staff at Tribes often face. Identity verification is required for most grant applications and reports and to draw down funds. This resulted in direct engagement with Tribal users, the development of tribal-specific guides, onsite help at conferences, and significantly expanded in-person identity verification options at more than 18,000 United States Postal Service locations nationwide.

The Treasury Department has worked across the Biden-Harris Administration to deploy historic support to Indian Country, including leading the implementation of key components of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The ARP funding includes $20 billion in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) awarded to Tribal governments, which represents the largest-ever single infusion of federal funding into Indian Country.

Treasury has also allocated over $500 million to Tribes under the ARP’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) – part of the largest and most expansive one-time investment for Tribal governments for small business financing in the history of the nation. And the IRA established a new credit delivery mechanism called elective pay (often referred to as “direct pay”) that enables Tribal governments to take advantage of clean energy tax credits for the first time, allowing projects to be built more quickly and affordably, which will in turn create good-paying jobs and lower energy costs.

The full Tribal CX Pilot for Post-Award Reporting Report can be viewed here.