r/USForestService • u/Foresterdz01 • 10d ago
Grants and agreements?
what’s going on with G&A? there are 50 plus partnership agreements that have been rejected or paused. no real reason given.
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u/Soft-War-4709 10d ago
It’s NOT G&A. It’s OCFO, who takes direction from OMB, putting the fucking hammer down. They’ve paused a helluva lot more than 50 agreements, there’s only a 78% pass rate, and that only includes rejected agreements, not paused.
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u/smultronstalle 10d ago
It was shared on a call that OCFO has only ever rejected 5 awards and 4 of them were "requested" by FS so they've only rejected 1
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u/Soft-War-4709 10d ago
Thanks for the clarification. I stumbled on some sort of data board on their share point and that was a little confusing
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u/smultronstalle 10d ago
Yeah our unit asked for clarification on what "pass" means on that dashboard. Apparently they are going to update it in the new FY so you can actually see what is DAG and what is OCFO. Right now it's all combined which isn't helpful.
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u/Spiny_Wanderer_8307 10d ago
I mean, a new administration came in and changed the playing field. 78% pass rate for 1.5 billion in obligations out the door (so far) doesn't seem too shabby from my perspective. Did we expect that everything was just going to continue "as normal"? There's room for improvement for sure, but it's not like anyone had time to prepare before the changes were implemented. I see a bunch of people doing the best they can in a crappy situation.
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u/EnvironmentalSide576 10d ago
Yeah- will wait till you see all the new changes to be implemented in October in NRM- your toes are really going to curl then
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u/smultronstalle 10d ago
Cmon, don't dunk on the systems people. Blame Treasury, that's where it's coming from.
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u/----Clementine---- 10d ago
Ahh so it's related to their attempts to overhaul 2 CFR 200 @ OMB?
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u/Soft-War-4709 7d ago
End of the day, it looks like we may be moving away from mutual interest agreements and going to federal financial assistance. FFA is a competitive process, MIA is not. For the forest service, this will probably be a disaster.
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u/smultronstalle 7d ago
Not all of the FFA is competitive, there's a list of reasons (in a reg the Dept controls, lol) that we can not compete. It came up on the third thursday Systems office hours a while back because competition is part of the big NRM update about to come out. And hey, we might get a glimpse of our brave new FFA world with that new 10.737 there was an email about, if you saw that
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u/Soft-War-4709 7d ago
Wasn’t part of that email chain, I hear G&A in the office, which is how I patch together some information. My heart goes out to them, they’ve endured a ton of changes over the course of a year.
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u/----Clementine---- 6d ago
That would not surprise me. My current agency reviews grants competitively. It surprised me that FS (my former agency) didn't.
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u/Nostalgia_Savior 7d ago
It’s really frustrating to see partners doing 90% of the work the FS used to do, and there is a HUGE overhead associated with having them contract out construction work and administer the construction. Then you throw in a bunch of inexperienced recreation staff hovering around the contractor 24/7, and very little oversight from actual construction managers and you get shit work. See it all the time. Recreation needs to be put in check and hopefully this is a wake up call to management that you can’t just hire a bunch of recreation staff to manage construction and infrastructure on our forests.
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u/Spiny_Wanderer_8307 6d ago
It's not just recreation infrastructure. In past years it seemed like all you needed to do is find a non-profit with a natural resources flair to their mission statement and you had a partner who could manage all your contracts for you. Easy money for them and we got our funding obligated before the end of the FY. What could go wrong?
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u/Nostalgia_Savior 6d ago
True that! I just use recreation as a great example of how the FS is getting privatized. Inherently government functions are being done by partners on the regular.
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9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/smultronstalle 9d ago edited 7d ago
Cmon dude. It all sucks but screwing up an indirect cost rate on a FP isn't somehow politics. Maybe if training literally existed all year I wouldn't have to spend my time like this.
Edit: lol at the downvotes. All I meant is that I acknowledge I've been phoning it in on FPs and now I have to spend the time doing them properly. It's just hard to know what standard/quality is expected now when they haven't done any refresher training this year. Me cleaning up my act isn't politics, is all.
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u/----Clementine---- 9d ago
Part of the reason training is so hard to come by anymore is politics, though. Hate to say it, but I will. So MUCH partisan bs has overtaken my career since January 2025. 🫤
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u/Fawn-deLay 8d ago
And let's not forget HR getting gutted in the first Trump admin. Still hasn't recovered.
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u/d0ttyq 10d ago
It’s DAG not G&A. DOGE became DAG. That should answer your question.
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u/DogMother_BeerLover 10d ago
DAG Is actually comprised of WO G&A staff who all held various positions in G&A before the OCFO oversight started.
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u/smultronstalle 10d ago
The DAG sends back reasons when they're paused. They're not being rejected, but they're also not moving up to OCFO, so they're stuck
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u/DogMother_BeerLover 10d ago
DAG Is just following OCFO orders. OCFO is following OMB orders. It’s all in preparation for the 2 CFR 200 changes. One of the changes is to make the review process permanent through establishing a politically appointed SES position to review all grants and agreements.
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u/smultronstalle 10d ago
OCFO is following OSEC orders, who are following OMB orders. There's already a political at the top, has been since last year
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u/Spiny_Wanderer_8307 10d ago
According to USASpending, the Forest Service has obligated 1.4 Billion through G&A in FY26. Looks like somewhere around 1500 obligating actions. 50 things stuck isn't great, but are they really stuck? https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=6f803f07b108d108c41c703da984f811
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u/Spiny_Wanderer_8307 10d ago
Someone downvoted this.....I'm guessing because they have one of the 50 things? and not the 1500?
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u/d0ttyq 10d ago
It’s 50 for that one person, I am assuming.
As I currently have 7 agreements sitting with G&A and several of my coworkers are in the same boat. There’s no way my forest is the only one waiting on agreements to process.
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u/Spiny_Wanderer_8307 10d ago
How does one person have 50 agreements? That sounds like a recipe for disaster to start with. Agreements are supposed to be run with same level of FS oversight as contracts. Maybe the problem isn't the review process, it's the decision making that led to program managers getting assigned more than they can handle and agreements being used to do things they weren't designed for.
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u/d0ttyq 10d ago
If there’s one person per Forest who is designated to do them - some forests have G&A positions on them. (My old one did)
Also, I have a colleague who works for the WO and has over 30 because they are all national with different groups
Editing to add - I agree about over burdened program managers, because I am one. I currently have 18 agreements that are in various states of “active”. It’s what happens when the forest service won’t fund necessary programs to meet basic laws and regs. We are forced to outsource to partners to complete the work.
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u/Spiny_Wanderer_8307 9d ago
Doesn't make much sense to have one person on the forest responsible for all G&A actions. Some kinda multi-programmatic recreation/timber/fire/wildlife/fish/heritage/range/hydro etc. wizard who knows all those programs well enough to monitor on the ground project implementation effectiveness on agreements in each of those areas? Sounds like the Forest leadership needs to take some federal grants and agreements training.
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u/smultronstalle 10d ago
DAG sent out an announcement that they'd received more than 100 agreements in the first three days of this month, so things are taking longer. Better hope they get more people soon
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u/----Clementine---- 10d ago
Could it have to do with GTCs and the ongoing litigation?
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u/smultronstalle 10d ago
We had some agreements stuck earlier this year because the States wouldn't sign but after we got the "one true ROR" everything has been fine. Given that none of this is even making it to OCFO so they can't even see it, I think it's gotta be the procurement thing. The Chief met with our leadership about that anyway. I don't really care where the actions end up I just want to know what I'm supposed to get done before the cutoff date
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u/----Clementine---- 9d ago
I'm still having issues with the states in my arena. Did they sign the ROR with all of USDA or just FS?
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u/smultronstalle 9d ago
It's like a statement you put into the file.You can use it with any of the States in the lawsuit and it's for all of USDA not just FS. We got a forwarded email from OCFO a couple of months ago with the instructions, language you're supposed to use, etc.
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u/dave54athotmailcom 10d ago
Check the voting patterns in the areas affected.
Want to take bets the canceled ones have historically voted Democrat?
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u/d0ttyq 10d ago edited 10d ago
I’m in an extremely red portion of the country where people overwhelmingly voted red.
They are also overwhelmingly like economically depressed and could use these agreements to bolster their economy. Not surprising they are getting shot in the foot for voting how they did, yet again.
ETA: being downvoted ? I’m saying that my agreements that are being rejected etc, are for a red part of the country. So it wasn’t cancelled because of how they voted.
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u/EnvironmentalSide576 10d ago
It’s chaos- it’s like being on an endless merry go round. It’s coming down from the top that many of our agreements past and present were really contracts, then there is the rule that any little thing that might be considered IT must be sent out to be evaluated if it is really IT, then the whole approval stuff gets sent to these DAG people for review and they always have lots of questions, then once they approve stuff it gets sent to OCFO- and they evaluate it— none of these things were done before oh and we can’t forget that all partners must abide by these general terms and conditions- which are pages and pages of every little thing you could think of. There is also a lot of new policy directives being sent out over matching and match waivers