nsf response

8/4/2019 NSF Response

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National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard

Arlington, Virginia 22230

March 22, 2011Office of Budget, flna nee

and Award Management

Honorable Darrellissa

Chairman

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

2157 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515-6143

Honorable Jim Jordan

Chairman

Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus

Oversight and Government Spending

Honorable Todd R. Platts

Chairman

Subcommittee on Government Organization,

Efficiency and Financial Management

vkonorable James Lankford

Chairman

Subcommit tee on Technology, Informat ion Policy,

Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement

Reform

Dear Representatives Issa, Platts, Jordan and Lankford:

Enclosed please find the response of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to your letter dated March

8, 2011 requesting information relating to the electronic systems In use at NSF to support business and

accounting functions; grants and loans management; contracts management; and reporting to .

government-wide systems such as USASpending.gov and Recovery.gov.

Specifically, this correspondence includes:

(1) NSF's responses to each of your Individual requests,

(2) an attach ment responding to request #2, and

(3) an attachment responding to request #20.

If you have any questions relating to this response, please d.o not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,t j( } ; : ~ \ " " L ~ a r t h a A. Rubenstein

O· - ~ ~ r e c t o r / C h l e f Financial Officer

Office of Budget, Finance and Award Administration

ee; Honorable Elijah Cummings, Ranking Member

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform



NSF Applications in the Grant Lifecycle



The National Science Foundation Responses to the House Committee on

Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding

Federal Financial Management Systems Modernization

1. Identify and briefly describe each of your agency's business and accounting systems. If

separate divisions, bureaus, or offices of your agency use separate systems, identify which

divisions, bureaus, or offices use each system.

NSF's business systems include FastLane, the eJacket system, and the Awards System.

They are described more fully in response to Request No.7.

NSF's accounting systems is known as the Financial Accounting System (FAS). Program

and financial management staff use FAS ta monitor, control, and execute the

management and financial accountability of NSF awards. This includes activities such as

making funding allocations, processing financial transactions, and conducting accounts

maintenance.

FAS has supported core financial processes for the Foundation for over 20 years, with

only one major upgrade during that time. As a result, this legacy financial management

system is aging and requires ever increasing time, effort, and funding to operate,

maintain, and remain in compliance with the new federal financial management

requirements. NSF is planning for a modernization, iTRAK (see NSF's response to Request

No. 5 for more information), that will support improved business processes for core

financial functions, enable staff to conduct in-depth financial analysis, eliminate manual

workarounds, and provide decision makers with data to make informed business

decisions.

FAS is extensively integrated with NSF's grants management systems and travel

applications.

2. Explain how the business and accounting systems identified in response to Request No.1

interact with one another.

The answer to this Request is contained in the attached document entitled,

NSF_Response to #2 _Operational Model.pptx.

3. For each system identified in response to Request No.1, state whether information found in

that system is regularly or periodically submitted to any of the government-wide accounting

systems maintained by the Department of the Treasury, e.g., GFRS, FACTS I, FACTS II, IFCS,

etc., and explain how and at what intervals those submissions occur, including descriptions of

both manual and automated processes.

NSF's Division of Financial Management (DFM) is responsible for reporting financial data

generated in the FAS periodically to the Department of the Treasury. NSF staffmanually



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formots, validates, and reconciles system data, often to a significant degree, to meet the

following reporting requirements:

Monthly

• Report FBwT (Fund Balance with Treosury) activity to Treasury monthly utilizing

the Agency Transaction Module of the Governmentwide Accounting and

Reporting Modernization System. The FBwT activity requires significant manual

data manipulation and reconciliation before it can be entered into the GWA

System.

Quarterly

• Upload budgetary account balance and attribute data into FACTS II.

o Manually reconcile, format, and submit proprietary account balance, attribute,

and trading partner data to Treasury for input into the Intragovernmental

Reporting and Analysis System. Again, significant manual data manipulation

and reconciliation is required before the data is submitted.

• Manually input Intra governmental account balance data for transactions with

OPM and DOL into IFCS.

• Manually reconcile and enter receivable and debt collection activity data into

the TROR.

Annually (Fiscal year-end)

• Manually input audited financial statements, notes, and trading partner data, by

line item, into GFRS for inclusion in the consolidated Financial Report of the

United States Government.

• Manually reconcile, format, and submit proprietary account balance, attribute,

and trading partner data to Treasury utilizing FACTS I. Again, significant manual

data manipulation and reconciliation is required before the data is uploaded.


that system is regularly or periodically submitted to the Office of Management and Budget's

("OMB") MAX Information System, and explain how and at what intervals those submissions

occur, including descriptions of both automated and manual processes.

Among the systems identified in the response to Request No.1, NSF submits information

found in the FAS and eJacket to OMB MAX Information System on an annual basis.

Specifically, this information is input into the Character Classification (Schedule C) and

Object Classification (Schedule 0) schedules. The systems are queried for the data, which

is manually input into the MAX Information System.

NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal

Financial Management Systems Modernization



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5. For each system identified in response to Request No.1, describe recent, current, and planned

migration or modernization projects.

NSF is undertaking a modernization project entitled iTRAK. iTRAK is a Foundation-wide

strategic initiative to transition NSF from its aging financial and solution to a modern,

streamlined financial management solution. iTRAK will facilitate standardization and

increase automation of NSF financial transactions, business processes, and operatingprocedures. iTRAK will also provide NSF managers with financial and business analysis

capabilities to support informed decision-making in administering and managing NSF

grants. These improvements are critical to NSF's continuous ability to facilitate

stewardship of resources, support calls for increased transparency of financial data

related to the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and comply with Federal

regulations and standards, which cannot be fully supported by NSF's current financial

management environment.

6. In addition to your agency's submissions to government-wide accounting systems maintained

by the Department of the Treasury and OMB, as described in response to Requests Nos. 3 and

4, does your agency publish any of the same information online for public viewing? If so,

describe how and in what format that information is published.

NSF's financial statements are available on its website included in the FY 2010 Agency

Financial Report, Chapter II: Financial Statements

http://www.ns&qov/pubs/2011/ns{11003/toc.jsp.

In addition, NSF publishes statistical data on award obligations annually in the Budget

Internet Information System, available to the public at http://dellweb.bfa.ns&qov/. Data

are extracted from the FAS and Awards System and published in tables by state, and

awardee institution and may be filtered by type of institution and/or NSF organization.

7. Identify and briefly describe each system that your agency uses to manage grants, direct

loans, and lo r loan guarantees. If separate divisions, bureaus, or offices of your agency use

separate systems, identify which division, bureaus, or offices use each system.

NSF's grants and cooperative agreement awards are managed through FastLane, the

eJacket system, and the Awards System.

• FastLane is used by NSF grant applicants and grantees to submit proposals, submit

project reports, and manage other post-award activities, including requesting

payments.

• eJacket provides NSF's administrative and program staff with access to the

information provided by applicants and grantees via FastLane. eJacket also provides

access to the official electronic award documents and records and workflow

automation capabilities to support the programmatic management of awards,

including project report approval.





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• The Awards System is used by NSF's grants and agreement officers to issue new

awards, manage the terms and conditions associated with an award, compose and

issue award letters, and administer the awards.

8. For each system identified in response to Request No.7, explain how it interacts with any

business or accounting system identified in response to Request No.1.

The answer to this Request is contained in the attached document entitled,

NSF_Response to #2 _Operational Model.pptx. This is also explained in the FY 2010

Agency Financial Report, Chapter I: Management's Discussion and Analysis, page 20

http://www.nstgov/oubs/2011/ns(11003/toc.jsp.

9. For each system identified in response to Request No.7, state whether i n f o r m a t h : ~ n found in

that system is regularly or periodically submitted to the Catalogue of Federal Domestic

Assistance (CFDA), and describe how and at what intervals those submissions occur, including

descriptions of both automated and manual processes.

NSF submits information found in the FAS and eJacket annually to the CFDA. This data is

entered manually in the CFDA database.


that system is regularly or periodically submitted to any of the government-wide grants

management and reporting systems, e.g., FAADS, FAADS PLUS, etc., and describe how and at

what intervals those submissions, occur, including descriptions of both automated and

manual processes.

NSF extracts data from the Awards System and FAS to report to FAADS on a monthly

basis and FAADS PLUS on a quarterly basis. This is an automatic process which pulls the

necessary data from the systems and formats them into the required data formats.

11. For each system identified in response to Request No.7, describe recent, current, and planned

migration or modernization projects.

NSF's Research.gov initiative will modernize FastLane services to the applicant and

grantee community. Research.gov also gives the general public, the science, engineering,

research, and education community, and Congressional staff easy access to key

information" on the results being achieved with federally-funded research.

12. In addition to your agency's submissions to government-wide grants management and

reporting systems, described in response to Requests Nos. 9 and 10, does your agency publish

any ofthe same information online for public viewing? If so, describe how and in what format

that information is published.

NSF also publishes this information in Research. gov Research Spending and Results

(RS&R). RS&R is an online, user-friendly platform to access and search detailed

information about federally funded science and engineering research and education,

giving the general public, the scientific community and Congress visibility into the results





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achieved with federally-funded research. Research awards are easily searchable by

awardee, award amount and date, CFDA number, state and congressional district

(where award was made and the work is being performed), and key word such as a field

of science. Information can be reviewed online or exported to various file formats. RS&R

also provides access to the outcomes of NSF-funded awards, including the publications

and conference proceedings resulting from NSF awards and the Public Outcomes Reportfor the General Public (PaR). NSF-funded researchers submit the paR at the end of the

project period describing the project outcomes or findings that address the intellectual

merit and broader impacts of the work as defined in the NSF merit review criteria. In

addition, see response to question 6.

13. Identify and briefly describe each system that your agency uses to manage contracts. If

separate divisions, bureaus, or offices of your agency use separate systems, identify which

divisions, bureaus, or offices use each system.

The Automated Acquisition Management System (AAMS) is the automated acquisition

tool used by the Division of Acquisition and Cooperative Support (DACS) Contracts

Branch (CB) to generate procurement documents. It is a Commercial Off-the-Shelf

(COTS) web-based application designed to store and manage acquisition data for the

Federal Government.

14. For each system identified in response to Request No. 13, explain how it interacts with any

business or accounting system identified in response to Request No. 1.

AAMS is not integrated into any of the systems identified in the response to Request

No.1. Depending on the source of funds:

.G. Commitment is entered into eJacket which routes it to the Awards System queue.

The information in the commitment is printed out and manually entered into AAMS.At the time of award in AAMS, the action is approved in the Awards System thereby

transmitting an obligation to FAS.

b. Commitment is entered into FAS and a document containing the commitment

information is' used to manually enter commitment information into AAMS. At the

time of award in AAMS, the obligation is manually entered into FAS.

15. For each system identified in respol1se to Request No. 13, state whether information found in

that system is regularly or periodically submitted to any of the government-wide contract

management and reporting systems, e.g., FPDS, FPDS-NG, FAPIIS, etc., and describe how and

at what intervals those submissions occur, including descriptions of both automated and

manual processes.


Financial Management Systems Modernizat ion



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AAMS is connected to the FPDS-NG system and populates FPDS-NG entries based on

entries in the Data Values tab of the AAMS action. Prior to an action being awarded, the

Contract Specialist/Contracting Officer goes into FPDS-NG through AAMS and runs the

FPDS-NG error checks and validates the entries prior to award. At this point the FPDS

NG Report is in a Draft state. When the Contracting Officer clicks the "award" icon in

AAMS the action is awarded in AAMS making the FPDS-NG report final in FPDS-NG. The

transfer of the final data between AAMS and FPDS-NG is real-time. FDPS-NG interfaces

with USAspending.gov to upload the Federal spending information.

16. For each system identified in response to Request No. 13, describe recent, current, and

planned migration or modernization projects.

The NSF iTRAK initiative includes integrating management of acquisition into our

financial and property management systems. Current acquisition processes have been

documented and the To-Be processes and requirements are currently in development.

Full implementation of Acquisition's integration into the new system is forecast for

FY2017. This integration will modernize acquisition processes through elimination of

double entry into systems and other manual steps which will reduce the possibility of

error and limit the use of paper to transmit information.

17. In addition to your agency's submission to government-wide contract management and

reporting systems, described in response to Request No. 15, does your agency publish any of

the same information online for public viewing? If so, describe how and in what format that

information is published.

Information contained in FPDS-NG concerning NSF actions is available to the public at

USAspending.com. Per instructions contained in Attachment 1 of the OMB

Memorandum, Service Contract Inventories, November 5, 2011, the NSF FY 2010 Service

Contract Inventory was published on January 31, 2011. This document is available on

the NSF website at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsfll026/nsfll026.pdf. It consists

of information on service contracts that hove the largest percentage of obligation during

FY 2010 and are considered "special interest functions" as described in OMB guidance

(e.g. Professional Management Services and Information Technology Support Services).

The guidance in the OMB memorandum showed how to develop the documentation

through using the FPDS-NG Ad-Hoc Reporting tool.

18. Briefly describe your agency's efforts to comply with OMB's memorandum on the Open

Government Directive - Federal Spending Transparency, dated April 6, 2010. In particular,

describe whether and how your agency has begun to collect and report sub-award data, as

required by the memorandum, and describe how your agency's reports on OMB's data quality

metrics, as required by the memorandum, are generated.





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NSF collects subaward data for grants through the Federal Funding Accountobility and

Transparency Act Suboward Reporting System (FSRS.gov). Subaward data is reported

publicly on USAspending.gov. All awards made on or after 10/1/2010 include a term

and condition requiring the prime grantee to report subaward and executive

compensation data to FSRS.gov. These reports are then automatically populated in

USAspending.gov. To assess data quality, NSF compares its FAADSPlus submission eachmonth to control totals generated from the accounting and grants management

systems.

For contracts, NSF issued a controct policy bulletin concerning the requirements included

in the April 6, 2010, memorandum to NSF acquisition personnel. The bulletin explained

requirements of FAR 4.14, Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontracts

and the clause FAR 52.204-10, Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier

Subcontract Awards (JuI2010). In the bulletin, Contracting Officers were instructed to (1)

include the FAR 52.204-10 clause in solicitations and contracts in accordance with FAR

4.1403 and (2) ensure reviews of contractor reports are performed on a quarterly basis

to ensure the information is consistent with contract information. The contract file shall

document the review conducted including any findings.

19. If your agency interacts directly with USASpending.gov, in addition to submitting information

to the systems that feed USASpending.gov, describe the nature, frequency, and purposes of

that interaction.

Since 2008, we have contacted USAspending.gov fewer than 10 times in order to clarify

technical aspects of the system and request that they replace previously submitted data

with a new record.

20. Describe the data quality controls and procedures that your agency has implemented for

information that is submitted to USASpending.gov, including information submitted directly

and information submitted to one ofthe systems that feed USASpending.gov.

This information is provided in the attached "Framework for the Quality of Federal

Spending Information" dated May 14, 2010, pages 29-33. NSF has implemented

additional data quality controls and procedures for the contractual information that is

input into FPDS-NG.

a. All data elements have to pass the FPDS-NG edits before the corresponding awards

can be issued by NSF's contract writing system, the Automated Acquisition

Management System (AAMS). The DACS CB Chief also requires multi-tiered review of

each action to prevent file errors including FPDS-NG errors.

b. In FY 2010, NSF began developing the FPDS-NG Anomaly Reports recommended by

GSA and described in the FPDS-NG Data Quality page of the MAX Collaboration Tool.

NSF runs reports in an effort to identify possible errors.

c. The contract writing system used at NSF, AAMS, contains a useful FPDS-NG reporting

tool that is used to assist DACS CB in improving FPDS-NG data accuracy.

NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight- & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal




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21. State whether all of your agency's current grants, contracts, and loans are accurately reflected

on USASpending.gov, and, if not, estimate the percentage of current grants, contracts, and

loans that are no t accurately reflected, using both the number of transactions and dollar

figures.

NSF is aware of 4 grants totaling $825,000 made in FY 2011 that are not currentlyavailable on USAspending.gov because the grantees' CCR registrations had expired or

their DUNS number could not be validated by USAspending.gov. This amounts to 0.001%

of the $859 million reported to date in FY 2011.

100% of reportable contract actions awarded during FY 2010 for NSF were entered into

FPDS-NG as fully and accurately as possible. Consequently, the number of transactions is

100% accurate. Veri/ication and validation (V& V) of NSF contractual data entered into

FPDS-NG in FY 2010 revealed a 96% overall accuracy rate/or the OMB designated key

data elements. Among these key data elements, the V& V revealed a 98% accuracy rate

pertaining to the Action Obligations data element; a 93% accuracy rate pertaining to theBase and Exercised Options Value data element; and a 90% accuracy rate pertaining to

the Base and All Options Value data element.

22. State whether your agency incurs any reporting burdens or costs as a result of its obligations

under the Federal Financial Assistance Transparency Act ("FFATA") that it does not incur as a

result of other reporting obligations, and estimate those burdens and costs in worker-hours

and dollars.

NSF does not currently incur any burdens or costs as a result of obligations under FFATA

that it does no t incur as a result of other reporting obligations.

23. Identify the individual(s) who serve(s) as Senior Accountable Official(s) ("SAO") over federal

spending data quality for your agency, as defined by OMB.

Jose L. Munoz, Ph.D, Chief Technology Officer, National Science Foundation.



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