142 FY 2020 AGENCY FINANCIAL REPORT | U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

THE GRANTS OVERSIGHT AND NEW EFFICIENCY (GONE) ACT 

OF 2016 AND EDUCATION’S GRANT CLOSEOUT PROCESS 

The goal of the Grants Oversight and New Efficiency (GONE) Act of 2016 (Pub. L. No. 114-117) was to close out grants 

and cooperative agreements that are in manual closeout with zero dollars and undisbursed balances and whose period 

of performance has exceeded two years.

Starting with an October 3, 2016, baseline of 8,948 grants and cooperative agreements totaling approximately $2 billion 

in various statuses of the closeout process, the Department succeeded in closing out 100 percent of the required grants 

and cooperative agreements during FY 2018. As of September 30, 2020, the Department had 384 grants and cooperative 

agreements totaling approximately $62.8 million in various statuses of the closeout process. See Table 15 below.

In FY 2020, the Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) performed a risk assessment of the Department’s grant 

closeout process and issued their results via memorandum. They identified risks with the reliability of grant data and related 

GONE Act reporting, as well as the Department’s grant closeout policies and procedures, including a policy allowing older 

grants to be closed in compliance without required reports being provided by the grantee. In addition, the OIG found that 

both the volume of expired grants and amount of undisbursed grant funds significantly increased between the date of initial 

GONE Act reporting (September 30, 2017) and January 30, 2020, indicating that grant closeout is less of a focus now that 

GONE Act reporting is over. The memorandum is available at https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/

fy2020/s19u0002.pdf.

Overall, the Office of Finance and Operations (OFO) agreed with the OIG assessment and noted its intention to move 

forward with grant policy deliberation consistent with the results of the assessment. Approved in July 2020, the Handbook 

for the Discretionary Grants Process (Handbook) includes policy requiring program officials to provide to the Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of the Office of Acquisition and Grants Administration (OAGA) a report on the status of Federal grants 

or cooperative agreements in the Department’s grant management system, G5, that have been in manual closeout status for 

two years or more. The report will include a narrative of the challenges leading to delays in grant and cooperative agreement 

award closeout and the planned corrective action to address these challenges. OAGA is now receiving reports from the 

program officials and will monitor progress on the proposed corrective actions.

During the summer of 2020, OAGA offered a financial monitoring curriculum for formula and discretionary grants aligned 

with the Standards for Financial Management in 2 CFR 200 Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit 

Requirements for Federal Awards, addressing cash management and drawdown activity of grantees’ utilization of funds consistent 

with an approved scope of work aimed at reducing issues associated with grant closeouts. The content of the sessions include 

the Handbook policy referencing grants and cooperative agreements in manual closeout status for two years or more and the 

submission of reporting with corrective actions to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of OAGA.

Category 2–3 Years 3–5 Years > 5 Years

Number of Grants/Cooperative 

Agreements with Zero Dollar 

Balances

48 - -

Number of Grants/Cooperative 

Agreements with Undisbursed 

Dollar Balances

336 - -

Total Amount of Undisbursed 

Balances $62,838,768 - -

Source: G5, grants management system linked to the Department’s general ledger system. Data is based on the performance end date of September 30, 2018.

Table 15