GRANT WORKFORCE

Agency Training 

Practices Should 

Inform Future 

Government-wide 

Efforts 

Report to Congressional Requesters

June 2013 

GAO-13-591 

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-13-591, a report to 

congressional requesters 

June 2013

GRANT WORKFORCE

Agency Training Practices Should Inform Future 

Government-wide Efforts

Why GAO Did This Study

Grants are a key tool used by the 

federal government to achieve a wide 

variety of national objectives. However, 

there are no government-wide training 

standards or requirements for the 

federal grant workforce. COFAR has 

reported it plans to develop such 

standards. GAO was asked to describe 

how the grant workforce is trained and 

what challenges and good practices 

exist. This report (1) describes the 

federal grant workforce at selected 

agencies and analyzes the challenge 

of identifying the workforce 

government-wide and (2) examines

selected good practices agencies use

and challenges, if any, in grants 

training and the potential implications 

for developing government-wide grants 

training standards. GAO obtained 

government-wide information on grants 

training through a questionnaire to 

chief learning officers at 22 federal 

agencies. For in-depth illustrative 

examples of grants training practices 

and challenges, GAO selected four 

agencies—Education, HHS, State, and 

DOT—based on factors such as total 

grant obligations and the number and 

type of grant programs administered. 

GAO also reviewed documentation and 

interviewed officials at OMB and OPM. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making recommendations to

the Director of OMB regarding the 

importance of including both types of

grants management roles—grants 

management specialists and program 

specialists—when developing 

government-wide grants management 

competencies and certification

standards. 

OMB staff concurred with the

recommendations.

What GAO Found

Identifying the federal grant workforce presents challenges due to differences in 

how agencies manage grants and the wide range of job series that make up the 

grant workforce. Some agencies manage grants by using a combination of

program specialists (subject-matter experts) and grants management specialists, 

while other agencies use program specialists to manage the entire grant process. 

In the four agencies that GAO focused on for this review—the Departments of 

Education (Education), Health and Human Services (HHS), State (State), and 

Transportation (DOT)—agency officials identified over 5,100 employees who 

were significantly involved in managing grants, spanning more than 50 different 

occupational job series. Recognizing the need for a classification that would 

more accurately capture the work of federal employees who manage grants, in 

2010 the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) created the “Grants 

Management Specialist” job series. However, due to the different ways that 

agencies manage grants, the extent to which agencies have adopted this series 

varies widely. More than half of the 22 federal grant-making agencies GAO 

surveyed make limited or no use of the job series. The Council on Financial 

Assistance Reform (COFAR), established by the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB) in October 2011 to provide recommendations on grants policy and 

management reforms, has announced plans to develop government-wide grants 

training standards, but it has not released information on how it plans to define 

the grant workforce. Defining the grant workforce is an important step in 

developing an effective government-wide grants training strategy. 

Agency officials identified three key practices to develop the grant workforce: 

(1) competencies, (2) agency-specific training, and (3) certification programs. 

First, some agencies developed their own competency models in order to better 

reflect the way they assigned grants management responsibilities. Officials at 

these agencies told GAO that OPM’s grants management competency model 

was not directly applicable to employees carrying out the program specialist role 

in their organizations. For example, rather than apply OPM’s competency model, 

a component of HHS developed a separate competency model tailored to 

program specialist employees responsible for managing grants. Second, 

agencies addressed their grants training needs through courses and other 

training mechanisms designed to provide knowledge of agency-specific policies 

and procedures. Officials reported challenges finding grants training that met all 

the needs of the grant workforce, and responded to this by customizing grants 

training courses. For example, Education customized commercial courses to 

include agency-specific policies and procedures and a component of HHS 

developed its own grants management courses to achieve the same goal. Third, 

to ensure a minimum level of proficiency in grants management, some agencies 

established grants management certification programs and tailored the 

certifications to fit the different roles within the grant workforce. For example, 

State tailored separate certification programs after recognizing two distinct roles 

played by its employees who manage grants. These agencies’ experiences have 

implications for COFAR’s plans to develop government-wide training standards, 

including creating grants management competencies, delivering training for those 

competencies, and establishing certification standards. 

View GAO-13-591. For more information, 

contact Stanley J. Czerwinski at (202) 512-

6806 or czerwinskis@gao.gov
Page i GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Letter 1 

Background 5

Identifying the Federal Grant Workforce Presents Challenges 7

Agency Practices in Support of the Grant Workforce Included 

Identifying Competencies, Providing Agency-Specific Training, 

and Using Certification Programs 13

Conclusions 24

Recommendations for Executive Action 25

Agency Comments 25

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 27

Appendix II Overview of Grants Training at the Departments of Education, 

Health and Human Services, State, and Transportation 31

Appendix III Grant Workforce by Job Series for the Departments of 

Education, Health and Human Services, State, and 

Transportation as of June 2013 49

Appendix IV OPM Grants Management Competency Model 51

Appendix V GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgements 55

Tables

Table 1: OPM’s Technical Competencies for Grants Management 14

Table 2: Department of Education Grant-Making Program Offices 

by Percent of Total Education Federal Funding for Grants 

in Fiscal Year 2012, Examples of Grant Programs, and 

Grants Training Requirements 31

Contents 
Page ii GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Table 3: HHS Grant-Making Operating Divisions by Percent of Total 

HHS Federal Funding for Grants in Fiscal Year 2012, 

Examples of Grant Programs, and Grants Training and 

Certification Requirements 36

Table 4: Examples of Department of State Federal Funding for 

Grants in Fiscal Year 2012 41

Table 5: DOT Grant-Making Operating Administrations by Percent 

of Total DOT Federal Funding for Grants in Fiscal Year 

2012, Examples of Grant Programs, and Grants Training 

Requirements 45

Table 6: OPM Grants Management Competencies by Grade Level 52

Figures

Figure 1: Number of Grants Management Specialists (1109 Series) 

in 22 Grant-Making CFO Act Agencies 9

Figure 2: Relative Frequency of Occupational Series Comprising 

the Grant Workforce in Education, HHS, State, and DOT 11
Page iii GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Abbreviations

A/OPE Office of the Procurement Executive

ACF Administration for Children and Families

ASPR Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response

CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CFO chief financial officer

CLO chief learning officer

CMS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

COFAR Council on Financial Assistance Reform

DOT Department of Transportation

Education Department of Education

FAA Federal Aviation Administration

FHWA Federal Highway Administration 

FMCSA Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

GOR grants officer representative

GPC Grants Policy Committee

HHS Department of Health and Human Services

HRSA Health Resources and Services Administration

IDP individual development plan

Leading EDGE Leading Executives Driving Government Excellence

NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

NIH National Institutes of Health

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OPM Office of Personnel Management

State Department of State 

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Page 1 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

June 28, 2013

The Honorable Darrel Issa

Chairman

The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings

Ranking Member

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

United States House of Representatives

The Honorable Thomas R. Carper

Chairman

The Honorable Tom Coburn, M.D.

Ranking Member

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Claire McCaskill

Chairman

Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

Grants are a key tool used by the federal government to achieve a wide 

variety of national objectives such as providing medical, financial, 

housing, and foreign assistance, as well as constructing and maintaining 

our nation’s highways, bridges, and mass transit systems. Federal outlays 

for grants to state and local governments totaled approximately $545 

billion in fiscal year 2012, comprising over 15 percent of all federal 

outlays.1 The value of these grants has grown considerably over the 

years, rising from $91 billion in fiscal year 1980 (about $225 billion in 

fiscal year 2012 constant dollars)—a real, inflation-adjusted increase of 

more than 140 percent.

 

1 For additional information on the role and funding levels of federal grants, see GAO, 

Grants to State and Local Governments: An Overview of Federal Funding Levels and 

Selected Challenges, GAO-12-1016 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 25, 2012). The dollar value 

of federal grants to state and local governments cited above does not include grants to 

others such as nonprofit organizations, research institutions, individuals, or foreign 

governments. According to the Office of Management and Budget, federal grants to state 

and local governments represent roughly 80 percent of all federal grant funding. 

 
 

Page 2 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Given the role federal grants play in achieving national objectives, as well 

as grants’ considerable growth in value and complexity over the past 

three decades, it is important that the federal workforce that manages 

these grants has the necessary knowledge and skills to do its job. In this 

regard, the government’s approach to another tool it uses to achieve 

goals—purchasing goods and services through federal contracts—

provides an interesting contrast. In fiscal year 2012, the federal 

government spent approximately $28 billion more on grants to state and 

local governments than it did on federal acquisitions. Under federal 

acquisitions law, there are clear government-wide training requirements 

for the acquisitions workforce intended to help ensure its quality and 

effectiveness.2 However, similar government-wide training requirements 

do not exist for the grant workforce.

In light of this, you asked us to examine how the federal government 

trains its grant workforce and what challenges, if any, exist.3 In this report, 

we (1) describe the federal grant workforce at selected agencies and 

analyze the challenge of identifying the workforce government-wide and 

(2) examine selected good practices agencies use and challenges they 

face, if any, in training the grant workforce, and the potential implications 

of these practices and challenges for a government-wide approach 

toward developing grants management competencies, training, and 

 

2 See the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act, as amended (41 U.S.C. § 1703) and 

the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (10 U.S.C. §§ 1741-46).

3 For the purposes of this report, we defined the “grant workforce” as any federal 

personnel (not including contractors or grant recipients) whose official job responsibilities 

included administering or managing grants, either full time or part time, including any 

aspect of the grant life cycle. This could include administrative and fiscal functions, 

conducting audit work, as well as programmatic aspects of the grant. However, 

involvement in the grant work for these personnel needed to be consistent and not 

conducted on an ad hoc basis. We defined “training for the grant workforce” as making 

available to employees planned and coordinated educational programs of instruction in 

grants management related to the employee’s job responsibilities. Such training could 

relate to a particular grant program or grants management in general. In addition, the 

training could be formal (such as classroom training, e-learning, or professional 

conferences that are educational or instructional in nature) or informal (such as 

participating in mentoring or developmental rotations).
 

Page 3 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

certification. You were also interested in the federal acquisitions 

workforce, which we reported on separately.4

To accomplish our objectives, we gathered information both governmentwide and at four specific agencies. To obtain a government-wide 

perspective, we reviewed federal employee data from the Office of 

Personnel Management’s (OPM) online FedScope information system 

that supports statistical analyses of federal human resources data, 

administered a questionnaire to the chief learning officers (CLO) at 22 

federal agencies with an active grant workforce, and reviewed 

documentation and interviewed officials from the Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) and OPM.

5 To obtain illustrative examples of 

experiences, challenges, and good practices in training the grant 

workforce, we selected four agencies—the Departments of Education 

(Education), Health and Human Services (HHS), State (State), and 

Transportation (DOT). The four agencies we selected account for 84 

percent of total grant dollars and 61 percent of total discrete grants 

awarded in fiscal year 2012. In addition, these agencies manage a variety 

of grant types, including formula, block, and project grants, and cover a 

broad range of areas including health, education, and transportation, 

among others.6 To examine good practices that agencies use in training 

the grant workforce, we used criteria from our work on strategic training 

 

4 GAO, Acquisition Workforce: Federal Agencies Obtain Training to Meet Requirements, 

but Have Limited Insight into Costs and Benefits of Training Investment, GAO-13-231

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 28, 2013).

5 The 22 Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies with an active grant workforce at the 

time of this review were the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, 

Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban 

Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans 

Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency; National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration; Nuclear Regulatory Commission; National Science Foundation; Small 

Business Administration; Social Security Administration; and the U.S. Agency for 

International Development. 31 U.S.C. § 901.

6 The scope of this review is limited to grants and does not include cooperative 

agreements or other federal assistance.
 

Page 4 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

and workforce planning in the federal government, internal control 

standards for training, and OPM guidance.7

To describe the federal grant workforce and analyze challenges related to 

workforce identification, we reviewed employee data from FedScope, 

collected workforce information through our 22-agency questionnaire and 

from our four case example agencies, and we reviewed documentation 

and interviewed knowledgeable officials at OMB, OPM, Education, HHS, 

State, and DOT. To describe how the federal grant workforce is trained 

and to identify challenges and good practices, we reviewed relevant 

federal laws and administrative guidance, collected information on 

training policies and practices in our questionnaire and in interviews with 

training officials at selected sub-agency components of our four case 

example agencies, and reviewed agency documents and collected 

information on training courses and their costs at Education, HHS, State, 

and DOT. To obtain information on government-wide policies and 

initiatives in this area, we reviewed documentation and interviewed 

officials at OMB and OPM. Since the focus of our work was on describing 

how the federal government trains its grant workforce, we conducted the 

individual agency reviews in order to identify illustrative examples of 

grants training experiences, challenges, and good practices and not to 

assess the specific grants training programs at these selected agencies. 

Additional details regarding our objectives, scope, and methodology are 

provided in appendix I. We include illustrative examples from our case 

example agencies throughout the report with additional details about 

grants training for each of the four case example agencies provided in 

appendix II.

We conducted this performance audit from May 2012 through June 2013 

in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

 

7 GAO, Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development Efforts 

in the Federal Government, GAO-04-546G (Washington, D.C.: March 2004); GAO, 

Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, GAO-04-39

(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003); and GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the 

Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999). 
 

Page 5 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

There are no specific government-wide training standards or training 

requirements for the federal grant workforce; however, the administration 

has taken some steps toward developing such standards. Between 2004 

and 2011, a work group within the administration’s Grants Policy 

Committee (GPC) studied the issue of training and certifying the grant 

workforce, which led to a number of recommendations. However, the 

work group’s recommendations were never formally adopted by the GPC.

In 2011, OMB formed the Council on Financial Assistance Reform 

(COFAR), an interagency group of executive branch officials, to replace 

the GPC and another federal board—the Grants Executive Board—with 

the stated aim of creating a more streamlined and accountable structure 

to coordinate financial assistance, including grants. In November 2012, 

just over a year after it was created, COFAR identified the need to 

develop a qualified and professional workforce as one of five priorities to 

guide its work on grants management reform in the coming years. To 

accomplish this, COFAR set five goals:

• Establish core competencies for grants managers by September 

2013.

• Develop a baseline body of knowledge as a shared resource by 

September 2013.

• Establish a government-wide resource repository for federal grants 

professionals by September 2013.

• Provide training for core competencies by September 2014.

• Establish certification standards by September 2015.

In developing proposals for grants training, COFAR considered the 

process and requirements that are in place for training the federal 

acquisitions workforce. Federal agencies generally do not need explicit 

statutory authority to make particular acquisitions of goods or services. 

However, for the procurement of goods and services, federal executive 

agencies are governed by a set of requirements specified in the Federal 

Acquisition Regulation. Congress has recognized the need for a 

professional acquisitions workforce by requiring executive agencies to 

establish management policies and procedures for the effective 

management of this workforce—including education, training, and career 

development.8 Several governmental organizations play critical roles in 

assisting agencies to build and train their acquisitions workforce. These 

 

8 41 U.S.C. § 1703 and 10 U.S.C. §§ 1741-46. 

Background 
 

Page 6 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

organizations include OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy, which 

provides government-wide guidance on managing the acquisitions 

workforce, and the Federal Acquisition Institute, which promotes the 

development of the civilian acquisitions workforce.9

In contrast to acquisitions, federal agencies do not have inherent authority 

to enter into grant agreements without affirmative authorizing legislation. 

Consequently, each federal grant program has legislation that identifies 

the types of activities that it can fund and the purposes it is to accomplish. 

Frequently, the authorizing legislation that establishes a particular grant 

program will define the program objectives and leave the administering 

agency to fill in the details through regulation. In addition to specific 

statutory requirements, OMB issues administrative requirements in the 

form of circulars. These circulars provide government-wide guidance that 

sets standards for a range of grants management activities, including 

grant application forms, cost principles, audits, and financial reporting. 

However, training is not one of the issues for which specific governmentwide guidance is provided.

While many differences exist among grant programs, a basic distinction 

can be made between two broad grants management roles. The first role 

is grants management specialist—employees who generally possess 

detailed knowledge of OMB grants administration requirements, specific 

agency policies and procedures for grants management, and relevant

laws and regulations to help ensure accountability of the grant funds. 

Grants management specialists are responsible for performing many of 

the daily grants management tasks from the pre-award phase through 

closeout.10 The second role is program specialist—employees who 

possess expert knowledge in the specific area necessary to meet a 

 

9 While broad training requirements are set for the acquisition workforce in legislation (41 

U.S.C. § 1703 and 10 U.S.C. §§ 1741-46), OMB establishes the government-wide training 

framework. See, for example, Office of Management and Budget, Policy Letter 05-01, 

April 15, 2005; and GAO-13-231. 

10 While there can be significant variation among different grant types, most competitive 

grants share a common life cycle for administering the grants: pre-award, award, 

implementation, and closeout. For additional information on the grant life cycle, see 

GAO-12-1016. 
 

Page 7 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

grant’s goals.11 Reflecting the wide variety of federal programs that grants 

support, individuals performing this role typically possess a specialized 

program or subject-matter expertise. These specialists can be involved in 

several stages of the grant process including announcing the terms and 

conditions of a grant, recommending potential grantees, and monitoring 

grantees’ progress in achieving the grant’s goals. Although these

categories describe separate focus areas and many employees involved 

with grants concentrate on one or the other, the categories are not 

mutually exclusive. A single employee can carry out the functions typically 

associated with both a grants management specialist and a program 

specialist.

Despite the existence of a “grants management specialist” job series, 

identifying the federal grant workforce presents challenges due to 

differences in how agencies manage grants and the range of employees 

involved in grants management. We have previously reported that 

organizations need to determine the workforce skills necessary to achieve 

their strategic goals as part of an effective training and development

program.12 However, identifying these skills, as well as the roles, 

responsibilities, and training needs of individuals in the federal grant 

workforce at a government-wide level remains a challenge. This is due to

the different ways agencies assign grants management responsibilities to 

grants management specialists and program specialists and the wide 

range of job series the agencies use.

 

11 For the purposes of this report, we refer to program specialists as those staff with 

specific expertise in the grant program and grants management specialists as those 

individuals with only grants management duties. Program specialists may be referred to 

by some agencies as “project officers,” “program officers,” or “grants officer 

representatives.” Grants management specialists may also be referred to by some 

agencies as “grants officers.” 

12 GAO-04-546G and GAO-04-39. 

Identifying the 

Federal Grant 

Workforce Presents 

Challenges 
 

Page 8 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Prior to 2010, no specific job classification existed for the many federal 

employees responsible for carrying out managerial and administrative 

tasks related to grants, including ensuring compliance with OMB and 

agency policies and procedures. In the absence of a specific job 

classification, officials at selected agencies told us that they classified 

these employees under a variety of other job series that did not focus on 

grants, such as general, administrative, and subject-matter job titles. 

OPM recognized the need for a classification that would more accurately 

capture the work of federal employees who manage grants, and in 

November 2010 the agency established a “grants management specialist” 

(series 1109). Since then, the extent to which agencies have adopted the 

1109 job series has varied greatly. As of December 2012, there were 

1,414 federal employees in the 1109 series in the 22 grant-making 

agencies we included in our survey.13 More than half of these employees 

worked at HHS. In contrast, 5 of these agencies do not have any series 

1109 employees and an additional 7 have fewer than 20 (see figure 1).

 

13 In addition to the 1,414 employees in the 1109 series at the 22 CFO Act agencies with 

an active grant workforce at the time of our review, 45 employees at other federal 

agencies were also classified in the series. 

Agency Adoption of OPM’s 

Grants Management 

Specialist Job Series Has 

Been Uneven Partly Due to 

Differences in How 

Agencies Manage Grants
 

Page 9 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Figure 1: Number of Grants Management Specialists (1109 Series) in 22 Grant-Making CFO Act Agencies

N = 1,414.

Note: Data reflect numbers of employees as of December 2012, the latest data available at the time 

of publication, for the 22 Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act agencies with an active grant workforce 

during this review.

The way that an agency manages grants may explain whether, and to 

what extent, it has adopted the grants management specialist job series 

1109. In the four agencies we selected for further review, we saw 

differences in the extent to which they adopted the 1109 series, partly 

because of different grants management approaches. At HHS, where 

grants management specialists work alongside program specialists, 

officials told us that they embraced the 1109 job series. Shortly after OPM 

introduced the series, HHS began moving hundreds of employees, who 

were classified in several general or miscellaneous administrative series 

and whose primary work responsibilities focused on carrying out 

managerial and administrative tasks, to the new 1109 series. In contrast, 

both Education and DOT—where program specialists primarily manage 

grants—largely chose not to use the new series. Officials at these 
 

Page 10 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

agencies told us that this decision resulted from their grants management 

approach where program specialists, who have expert subject-matter 

knowledge in the grant program area, also carry out the functions of 

grants management specialists. These officials also had concerns about 

transitioning program specialists such as engineers or educational 

specialists, who have specific educational requirements, to the 1109 

series which has no such requirements.

In addition to the 1109 grants management specialist series, the federal 

grant workforce includes a wide range of employees in other job series, 

many of whom function as program specialists. These employees 

generally possess specialized education and expertise in an area directly 

relevant to the grant’s subject area. For example, at DOT, the employees 

responsible for managing federal airport safety and improvement grants 

are typically civil engineers (series 810), who are familiar with airport 

runway construction standards. Similarly, HHS employs social scientists 

(series 101) with expertise in child and family services as well as doctors 

and nurses (series 602 and 610, respectively) to manage and support 

grants that fund health care and related services to needy families. Some 

agencies, like DOT, typically rely upon program specialists to carry out 

both the grants management and program specialist functions, while 

others, such as HHS, employ individuals whose primary responsibility is 

to administer daily grants management tasks while working alongside 

program specialists.

With such a diverse range of job series across federal grant-making 

agencies and given the considerable variation in how agencies assign 

individuals to grants management roles, it is difficult to identify all the staff 

responsible for managing federal grants other than on an agency-byagency basis. We asked the four agencies we focused on in this review—

Education, HHS, State, and DOT—to identify the number of employees 

they considered to be in their grant workforce and provide us with 

breakdowns by job series. They identified over 5,100 employees, 

spanning more than 50 different occupational job series.14 These include 

 

14 These employees represented staff whose official job responsibilities include 

administering or managing grants either full-time or part-time, including those personnel 

involved in any aspect of the grant life cycle. Since our definition of “grant workforce” did 

not include employees who were involved with grants on an irregular or ad hoc basis, 

rather than as a regular part of their job duties, the actual number of staff with some 

involvement with grants is likely to be higher. 

Agencies Assign 

Employees in a Wide 

Variety of Job Series to 

Manage Grants Other than 

the Grants Management 

Specialist Job Series
 

Page 11 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

grants management specialists, program specialists (e.g., public health 

program specialists, education program specialists, civil engineers, 

transportation specialists, and Foreign Service officers), auditors, and 

financial managers, among others. See figure 2 for a visual 

representation of the relative frequency of more than 90 percent of these 

occupational job series. For a complete listing of these job series as well 

as the total number of employees in each, as identified by Education, 

HHS, State, and DOT, see appendix III.

Figure 2: Relative Frequency of Occupational Series Comprising the Grant Workforce in Education, HHS, State, and DOT

N = 4,708 employees.

Note: This figure depicts the relative frequency of each job series by the size of the word or phrase 

describing the job series title. Job titles that appear larger occurred more frequently than those that 
 

Page 12 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

appear smaller. The figure represents over 90 percent of the grant workforce identified by Education,

HHS, State, and DOT. It does not include 37 job series where fewer than 50 employees were 

identified because they were too small to be legible; this accounts for a total of 417 employees. The 

data reflect agency counts taken between December 2012 and June 2013.

With the exception of the grants management specialists in the 1109 

series, grant officials at each of these four agencies told us that only a 

subset of those in the 57 job series they identified as part of the grant 

workforce are actually assigned to work on grants. The program 

specialists, accountants, contracting officers, and other individuals 

identified as part of the grant workforce generally comprised a relatively 

small subset of the total number of agency employees in those 

associated job series. For instance, while HHS employed over 6,800 

doctors as medical officers (series 602) as of December 2012, officials 

identified only 29 of these as part of the grant workforce. Moreover, for 

some of the employees identified as being in the grant workforce, working 

on grants-related activities may only be part of what they do.

On a government-wide level, OMB staff told us that they understand that 

the 1109 series does not encompass the entire federal grant workforce. In 

a town hall meeting held in December 2012 with grant-making agencies 

to discuss COFAR priorities, COFAR officials recognized that 

government-wide efforts to develop training and certification standards 

will need to consider how to reach members of the grant workforce who 

are not in the 1109 series. To date, COFAR has not made public specific 

plans on how it will define the grant workforce, nor which members of the 

grant workforce—such as grants management specialists and program 

specialists—it intends to include when developing government-wide 

training standards.
 

Page 13 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

We previously reported on the value of identifying competencies that are 

critical to successfully achieving agency missions and goals, such as 

those related to grant making, and assessing gaps in those competencies 

among the workforce.15 Competencies describe measurable patterns of 

knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and other characteristics that an 

individual needs to perform work roles or occupational functions 

successfully. Understood another way, competencies specify what the 

person needs to do the job successfully. While there are other ways to 

identify training needs, such as through individual development plans or 

needs assessments, grants management competency models can be 

used to establish an overall framework to guide agencies’ training efforts 

as well as to provide a basis for agencies to identify critical skills gaps in 

the workforce and training to address these gaps.

There have been previous efforts to develop government-wide grants 

management competencies, and another is planned by COFAR for 2013.

These efforts date back to 2004 when the Chief Financial Officers 

Council’s now defunct GPC formed a work group on training and 

certifying the grant workforce which, according to officials in this group, 

developed an initial draft set of competencies. However, after holding 

discussions with OPM, the work group decided not to pursue this effort 

because OPM decided to take on the task. Subsequently, in 2009, OPM 

released a government-wide grants management competency model. 

 

15 GAO-04-546G and GAO-04-39. 

Agency Practices in 

Support of the Grant 

Workforce Included 

Identifying 

Competencies, 

Providing AgencySpecific Training, and 

Using Certification 

Programs

Government-wide Grants 

Management 

Competencies Do Not 

Include Competencies for 

Program Specialists That 

Some Agencies 

Incorporated in Their Own 

Models
 

Page 14 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

According to OPM officials who were involved in the effort, the model 

describes functional competencies that apply across multiple job series or 

occupations, similar to OPM’s crosscutting leadership competencies.16 In 

addition to numerous general competencies, the model identified five 

technical competencies specific to grants management (see table 1).17

See appendix IV for the full set of OPM’s grants management 

competencies. OPM’s model has served as a framework to support a 

government-wide effort to assess critical skills gaps among the federal 

workforce. Through that effort, the administration identified seven mission 

critical competencies, and three were related to grants management. 

OPM officials told us that they are consulting with OMB staff and COFAR 

officials to determine a strategy for assessing skills gaps in these 

competencies.

Table 1: OPM’s Technical Competencies for Grants Management 

Compliance Knowledge of procedures for assessing, evaluating, and monitoring programs or projects for 

compliance with federal laws, regulations, and OMB circulars

Financial Analysis Knowledge of financial methods, procedures, and practices to assess the financial stability of 

those applying for, or receiving, federal grants or agreements

Financial Assistance Mechanisms Knowledge of the differences between acquisition and financial assistance purposes and 

requirements; knowledge of federal assistance instruments, techniques, and procedures for 

grants (for example, block, mandatory, discretionary) and agreements (for example, 

cooperative, interagency)

Grants Management Knowledge of requirements, practices, and procedures for soliciting, receiving, reviewing, and 

processing proposals, and awarding and administering grants and agreements

Grants Management Laws, 

Regulations, and Guidelines

Knowledge of principles, laws, regulations, policies, practices, and guidelines (for example, 

executive orders, Code of Federal Regulations, OMB circulars) of grant or agreement 

programs, including their order of precedence

Source: OPM.

 

16 OPM’s leadership competencies were developed as a guide for selecting strong leaders 

to serve in the Senior Executive Service and assessing executive experience and 

potential. The five Executive Core Qualifications—leading change, leading people, results 

driven, business acumen, and building coalitions—have a total of 28 executive 

competencies that underlie them. 

17 Competencies can be classified as general or technical. General competencies reflect 

the cognitive and social capabilities (e.g., problem solving, interpersonal skills) required for 

job performance in a variety of occupations. On the other hand, technical competencies 

are more specific as they are tailored to the particular knowledge and skill requirements 

necessary for a specific job. 
 

Page 15 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Following the release of OPM’s grants management competencies in 

2009 not all grant-making agencies have embraced them. In response to 

our survey, half of agency CLOs (11 of 22) reported using the OPM 

competencies for purposes of identifying or developing grants training. 

The agency experiences described below may provide some insight into 

why some agencies have not used OPM’s competencies and also raise 

questions about the sufficiency of OPM’s competencies in meeting the 

needs of program specialists.18

At HHS, several grant-making operating divisions told us that while they 

found OPM’s competency model useful for grants management 

specialists, they also needed a separate competency model for staff who 

function as program specialists working with their grants management 

specialists to manage grants. For example, officials in HHS’s Health 

Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) noted that OPM’s 

competencies were not appropriate for program specialists, so they 

developed a set of program specialist competencies. While these 

incorporate elements similar to OPM’s technical competencies, they also 

include others that are more directly related to the employee’s specific 

role in the HRSA grant program. HRSA highlights the role and authority of 

program specialists in the agency as distinct from that of the grants 

management specialist (series 1109 employees). In addition to 

competencies specifically related to grants management, HRSA also 

includes competencies related to policy analysis, research and 

evaluation, and technical assistance. For example, under the “policy 

analysis” competency, program specialists must be able to apply public 

health knowledge to HRSA’s programs, perform policy analysis, and use 

this information to develop recommendations for improving HRSA 

programs or grantee performance. Under the “technical assistance” 

competency, program specialists need to be able to plan and conduct 

training and other activities that help grant applicants and grantees 

understand and comply with grant objectives and policies. In June 2013, 

the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finalized a set of 

competencies for program specialists which, like HRSA’s program 

specialist competencies, includes competencies directly related to the 

employee’s specific role in CDC grant programs.

 

18 In June 2012, Leading EDGE, an interagency group composed of leaders from the 

Senior Executive Service, gathered to, among other things, look at the creation of grants 

competencies as one way to help develop and train career leaders and improve mission 

performance.
 

Page 16 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

At Education, an official told us that OPM’s single overarching grants 

management competency model did not fit the agency’s culture or the 

way it managed grants. Unlike HHS, Education employs program 

specialists to manage grants through the entire process. Of the six job 

series under which the grant workforce is classified, five are mission 

critical occupations and the agency incorporates grants management 

competencies into the competency models for these occupations. For 

example, competencies for management and program analysts (series 

343) include elements similar to the five OPM technical competencies. 

Education also includes competencies demonstrating leadership in the 

field and programmatic understanding and knowledge as well as technical 

assistance for both management and program analysts and education 

research analysts/education program specialists (series 1730/1720). An 

Education official explained that the agency’s culture was resistant to a 

single, one-size-fits-all approach, and that staff were concerned that such 

a model would not adequately account for the technical and 

programmatic expertise needed to achieve program goals. Education 

used these grants management competencies as part of an agency-wide 

competency gap assessment, and is using the results to develop training 

to close these gaps.

A recent effort to develop government-wide grants management 

competencies provides further confirmation of the importance of 

developing competencies based on how agencies manage grants. In 

June 2012, senior executives from across the federal government 

gathered at the first meeting of the group Leading Executives Driving 

Government Excellence (Leading EDGE) to examine a variety of 

government-wide management issues and one issue the group selected 

to address was grants training. In November of that year, the group 

issued a report recommending a set of grants management 

competencies. The Leading EDGE report recognized that federal 

agencies target and structure their grants training depending on how they 

manage grants and that this varied across agencies. Further, the report 

acknowledged that some agencies assign grants management specialists 

to work in conjunction with program specialists while others assign an 

individual to perform both of these roles, and that grants training 

competencies needed to account for this variation.

Despite its recognition of the importance of considering the different ways 

that agencies manage grants when formulating a grants management 

competency model, the competency model the Leading EDGE report 

proposes is not significantly different from the model developed by OPM 

in 2009. In fact, the Leading EDGE model consists of the same 
 

Page 17 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

competencies, defined in the same way, as those in OPM’s model. The 

only change to the competencies is how Leading EDGE categorizes two 

competencies—“planning and evaluation” and “project management.” In 

the OPM model these are listed as “general” competencies, whereas 

under the Leading Edge proposal, they become “technical” competencies. 

The Leading EDGE report does not specifically explain how making such 

a change would provide a meaningful alternative to the status quo that led 

agencies like HRSA and Education to explore other approaches. This is 

particularly true in light of the fact that, according to OPM officials, it is not 

uncommon for agencies to reclassify competencies as appropriate for 

their needs under existing competency models. So, while the Leading 

EDGE report represents a useful step forward in its recognition of the 

need to more fully integrate considerations related to program specialists 

when thinking about grants management competencies, its proposal, 

much like the current OPM model itself, is not likely to sufficiently address 

the need for competencies that are more responsive to the program 

specialist role.

We believe that these agency experiences, and that of Leading EDGE, 

provide important information for COFAR’s consideration when 

developing government-wide grants management competencies. 

According to planning documents, COFAR expects to produce 

government-wide grants management competencies by September 2013. 

Toward this end, OMB staff told us that they have held three town hall 

meetings with agency officials between August 2012 and April 2013 in 

order to review COFAR’s priorities, such as developing grants 

management competencies, and to obtain feedback from all federal 

grant-making agencies on what COFAR should consider as it moves 

forward on its priorities. Also, they engaged other stakeholders such as 

professional grants associations at meetings, conferences, and on 

conference calls. In addition, OMB staff said that COFAR plans to build 

on Leading EDGE’s work as it develops new grants management 

competencies for the federal workforce.
 

Page 18 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

We have previously reported that agencies need to provide their 

workforce with training and development that is aligned with their 

missions, goals, and cultures.19 We found that agencies provide formal 

and informal grants training through classroom instruction, online 

webinars, and meetings or briefings. The source of this training was 

generally a combination of direct agency provision and external vendors.

According to our agency CLO survey, 7 of 22 agency CLOs responded 

that all or most of their grants training was provided by their agency. In 

addition, 9 of the 22 agency CLOs said they receive all or most of their 

grants training from commercial or non-profit sources, and the most 

common commercial provider by far was a single vendor. This vendor 

offers a set of core grants management courses designed to provide 

general knowledge that can be applied across the federal grants 

environment. Among these is an introductory course on grants as well as 

courses on cost principles, administrative requirements, and grants 

monitoring.

Agencies also reported difficulties finding grants training that met all of the 

needs of their grant workforce. Specifically, 13 of 22 agency CLOs 

responding to our survey said that they found the availability of training 

that met agency needs was at least a moderate challenge in training the 

grant workforce. For example, an agency said it was challenging to find 

courses that include instruction on specific statutes that authorize grant 

programs. In addition, in our interviews at selected agencies, officials told 

us that while external training courses were often useful in providing staff 

with general grants management knowledge, it was challenging to find 

courses that addressed agency or program-specific policies and 

procedures.

Of the four agencies we selected for a more detailed review, some 

responded to this challenge by customizing or supplementing 

foundational grants training courses provided by a commercial vendor or 

by developing training mechanisms, other than formal courses, for 

distributing agency-specific guidance to employees. For example, 

Education worked with a commercial vendor to tailor the vendor’s grants 

training courses to reflect Education’s policies and procedures and 

include examples and exercises specific to the agency. Although these 

courses were taught by the vendor’s instructors, Education provided 

 

19 GAO-04-546G. 

Agencies Have Adapted 

Grants Training Courses 

and Developed Other 

Training Mechanisms to 

Address Agency-Specific 

Policies and Procedures
 

Page 19 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

subject-matter experts to guide the customization of the courses to 

include agency policies and procedures. According to Education officials, 

the decision to tailor these external courses was based on participant 

feedback as well as their understanding of how adults process 

information while learning. The agency offered the courses to one cohort 

of employees in fiscal year 2011, to another cohort in fiscal year 2012, 

and to two cohorts in fiscal year 2013. Each cohort consisted of 35 

employees.

In contrast, at HHS, officials chose to supplement commercially available 

grants training courses by developing their own grants training courses.

For example, in addition to offering program specialists a core of vendorprovided courses, during the course of this review HRSA began requiring 

these employees to take three courses that the operating division 

specifically developed for its own grant policies and procedures. HRSA 

officials told us that while they found the commercial courses offered 

beneficial foundational knowledge on grants management, the courses 

did not fully address how the grants process operated at HRSA. For 

example, although the commercial courses cover administrative 

requirements for grants management as set by OMB, a goal of the HRSA 

program specialist training is to help program specialists understand how 

HHS policy relates to OMB guidance. The program specialist course 

manual uses practice scenarios with specific HRSA examples to present 

the reasoning behind when and which policies should supersede others.

HRSA officials told us that the program specialist training was developed, 

in part, with the goal of improving customer service to grantees by 

ensuring that staff receive specific training on how to manage HRSA 

grants.

Each of the agencies that we selected for a detailed review also used 

other approaches to impart agency-specific guidance on grant policies 

and procedures to the grant workforce. For example, State used a 

number of training mechanisms in addition to formal courses to train its 

grant workforce both domestically and overseas. These included informal 

training sessions and a variety of online information sharing. Informal 

training included roundtable discussions facilitated quarterly by State’s 

central grant policy office. These discussions allowed employees to share 

knowledge and perspectives with their peers on topics such as monitoring 

grant programs through site visits. State has several methods for sharing

information, including an online platform where employees can find the 

latest information on policy guidance and regulations, grant reports, and 

grant systems as well as online repositories for frequently asked 

questions on agency grants policy and financial management of grants.
 

Page 20 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

State officials told us that because OMB administrative guidance

generally does not apply to the overseas grant environment, the agency 

has developed training for the grant workforce on agency-specific policies 

and procedures.20 Using the training mechanisms described above, 

among other training methods, agency officials said they were able to 

provide employees with agency-specific training as issues arose and, 

through the use of online information sharing, easily reach those in the 

overseas bureaus.

On a government-wide level, COFAR plans to provide training on grants 

management core competencies by September 2014. Toward that end, 

OMB staff told us that COFAR has solicited feedback in town hall 

meetings with grant-making agencies, explored potential options for 

training venues, and is having HHS take the lead for COFAR in this effort.

Certification programs are designed to ensure that individuals attain the 

knowledge and skills required to perform in a particular occupation or role 

by establishing consistent standards. Requirements for certification often 

include some amount of professional experience, continuing education, 

and successful completion of an assessment process that measures an 

individual’s mastery of knowledge and skills against a set of standards.21

Internal control standards for agencies state that management should 

identify the appropriate knowledge and skills, provide training, and 

establish a mechanism to help ensure that all employees receive 

appropriate training as part of establishing a control environment.22 One 

internal control mechanism agencies have used is to develop certification 

programs to help ensure that staff demonstrate a level of competence in a 

particular field critical to the agencies’ missions and goals.

 

20 OMB circulars provide guidance for grants issued to educational institutions, state and 

local governments, and non-profit organizations. While one OMB circular does state that 

agencies may apply administrative guidance to foreign governments and organizations, 

other circulars do not offer specific guidance for grantees that are foreign governments or 

organizations. 

21 This definition is based on 2008 guidance from OPM.Professional certifications result in 

a credential issued by a third party. For example, the National Grants Management 

Association issues the Certified Grants Management Specialist credential. In contrast, the 

agency-issued certifications at two agencies we selected for detailed review—State and 

HHS—did not result in a third-party credential.

22 GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1.

Agency Experiences with 

Establishing Grants 

Management Certification 

Programs Illustrate the 

Usefulness of Tailoring 

Certification to Fit Roles 

and Responsibilities and 

the Value of Leadership 

Commitment
 

Page 21 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Although not required government-wide, many agencies require or 

recommend grants management certifications in order to help ensure 

sound management practices across the agencies’ grant workforce.

Twenty-three percent (5 of 22) of agency CLOs responding to our survey 

reported that their agency requires some type of grants management 

certification and 73 percent (16 of 22) either require or recommend 

certification. The 16 agencies that either require or recommend grants 

management certification most often chose the following as one of the top 

three reasons why they do so:

• to ensure compliance with grants management regulations (15 of 16 

agencies);

• to ensure accountability of grant funds (12 of 16 agencies); and

• to ensure uniform knowledge (11 of 16 agencies).

The experiences of agencies that have established certification programs 

suggest some broader lessons for establishing grants management 

certification standards government-wide that apply to the entire grant 

workforce. Two of the four agencies we selected for a more detailed 

review—State and HHS—have developed certification programs. State 

has implemented certification programs for all grants officers and, as of 

January 2013, for all grants officer representatives. To earn the grants 

officer certification employees must complete grants training, possess 

specific levels of education or experience, and comply with a continuing 

education requirement. To earn the grants officer representative 

certification employees must complete specific grants training and comply 

with a continuing education requirement. HHS developed an agencywide certification program for grants management specialists, but only 

some of its operating divisions have implemented it. The certification 

program has four levels for grants management specialists, each of which 

requires staff to either complete specific training or to obtain an increasing 

amount of on-the-job experience. Several operating divisions also require 

that program specialists take some grants training, and one operating 

division is proposing a separate required certification program for 

program specialists.

One lesson that agency experiences suggest is the importance of clearly 

defining the roles and responsibilities of a diverse grant workforce and 

then appropriately tailoring certification standards in order to ensure that 

all key personnel in the grant workforce have appropriate and consistent 

knowledge to fulfill their roles. For example, State identified two key roles 

in its grants management process—grants officers and grants officer 

representatives—and tailored separate certifications for these roles.
 

Page 22 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Certified grants officers (e.g., grants management specialists) issue 

federal grant awards up to a specified value depending on the level of 

certification. As the value of grant awards increases, the amount of 

training required for the certification also increases. All levels of grants 

officer certification require completion of a certain number of training 

hours every 3 years in order to renew the certification. Grants officer 

representatives are program specialists who oversee the programmatic 

and technical aspects of the grant. They are appointed by grants officers 

and must complete two grants management courses before obtaining the 

grants officer representative certification. All grants officer representatives 

must update their training with additional grants training every 3 years. In 

2007, we reported that State had inconsistent training and skills 

requirements for the grant workforce, and that State officials were 

concerned about the agency’s ability to effectively manage its grants and 

other foreign assistance.23 Agency officials told us that the grants officer 

representative certification was implemented in January 2013, to address 

inconsistencies in training for grants officer representatives across the 

agency.

In another example, HHS’s guidance on its agency-wide certification 

program recognizes the important role that program specialists play in the 

technical, scientific, and programmatic aspects of grants. The guidance 

states that since program specialists work in partnership with grants 

management specialists, they should complete an orientation course in 

grants administration that emphasizes the program specialist’s role in the 

grants management process. Completion of this orientation course in 

conjunction with joint nomination by the supervising program and grant 

officials results in certification as a program specialist. The guidance 

encourages program specialists to take further grants training, but does 

not require them to complete the grants management certification.

Another lesson illustrated by agency experiences in this area is the 

importance of ongoing leadership commitment and having a mechanism 

in place to track the implementation of training requirements. HHS 

developed an agency-wide professional certification program for the grant 

workforce in 1995, but the program was not fully implemented even 

though operating divisions were required to do so by guidance and an 

 

23 GAO, Department of State: Human Capital Strategy Does Not Recognize Foreign 

Assistance Responsibilities, GAO-07-1153 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2007).
 

Page 23 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

agency policy directive. We found that a limited number of grant-making 

operating divisions (4 of the 13) had taken action to implement the 

required certification program.24 Grant officials in HHS’s operating 

divisions told us that the program was inconsistently implemented 

because of changes in agency-level leadership and lack of enforcement.

Other officials said that without enforcement of the certification 

requirement or updated agency-wide training guidance for grants 

management it was a challenge to obtain the resources needed and 

identify courses for training the grant workforce. Another potential factor 

contributing to uneven implementation was that HHS did not track most 

staff completion of the grants management certifications agency-wide, 

although operating divisions tracked staff completion where the 

requirement was enforced. Agency officials told us that they did track 

certification completion for those meeting the requirements of the highest 

certification level reserved for chief grants management officers, a 

position typically filled by members of the Senior Executive Service.

According to these officials, the operating divisions at HHS nominate staff 

to receive the chief grants management officer certification and the 

agency-level grants policy division authorizes it. In contrast, State tracked 

whether staff completed requirements for its grants certifications in a 

database maintained by the Office of the Procurement Executive. Officials 

told us the system’s visibility is a useful monitoring tool that encourages 

staff to complete the certification program in a timely manner.

We believe that the lessons from these two agencies that have developed 

certification programs provide important information for COFAR’s 

consideration. On a government-wide level, COFAR has identified the 

need to ensure a consistent knowledge base and professionalize the 

grant workforce through developing certification standards by September 

2015. OMB staff told us that they are looking into a multi-agency effort to 

develop a grants management certification that is being led by the 

Departments of Commerce and Energy. OMB staff also said they have 

had initial discussions on certification standards with professional grants 

associations.

 

24 An official in one of these divisions told us that while they had taken steps to implement 

the certification requirement, they did not expect the requirement to be fully in place until

the beginning of fiscal year 2014. While they don’t have a grants management specialist 

certification, officials in an additional operating division told us that they are developing a 

certification program for program specialists that goes beyond the single course required 

in the HHS-wide guidance.
 

Page 24 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Given the importance of grants as a tool to achieve federal objectives and 

the large outlays the federal government makes to fund them each year, it 

is critical that the people who manage these grants—the federal grant 

workforce—be well-trained to handle their responsibilities. A key first step 

in this process is to have a clear understanding of the different ways 

agencies manage their grant processes and the wide variety of 

employees involved. A robust understanding of the diverse types of 

employees that make up the grant workforce and the key roles they carry 

out provides a foundation for the development of an effective 

government-wide grants training strategy.

In November 2012, COFAR identified the federal government’s need to 

develop a qualified and professional grant workforce as one of its top 

priorities in the coming years. Toward that end, it announced a series of 

goals including the creation of government-wide grants competencies, 

training, and certification standards. As COFAR moves forward with plans 

to develop such standards, its efforts would benefit from considering the 

experiences of federal agencies in areas such as the development of 

grants management competencies and certification programs. Several 

agencies we reviewed found competencies to be a useful tool for 

structuring and identifying training needs. However, to fully support the 

agencies’ grant-making missions and goals, the competencies need to 

address two key roles in the grant workforce: grants management 

specialists and program specialists. Although OPM’s competency model 

appears to largely address the former, the experiences of agencies we 

reviewed suggest that the model was not directly applicable for program 

specialists involved in the grants process. Recognizing this gap, agencies

took a variety of approaches including developing their own competency 

models for program specialists or finding ways to incorporate specific 

grants management competencies into existing competency models. 

Based on these agency experiences, future government-wide 

competencies that do not address the program specialist role will likely 

not be fully adopted by grant-making agencies.

Similar to agency experiences with competencies, some agencies have 

developed certification programs that have unique requirements 

depending on the role of the individual as either a grants management 

specialist or a program specialist. At one agency, for example, by 

developing a certification program that specifies a standard training 

curriculum and other requirements for both key roles in the grant 

workforce, the agency helped to ensure that key members of its grant 

workforce have appropriate levels of proficiency. Future government-wide 

certification standards that do not distinguish between the grants 

Conclusions 
 

Page 25 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

management specialist role and the program specialist role will likely not 

be fully adopted for the entire grant workforce by all grant-making 

agencies. As COFAR crafts government-wide standards for grants 

training, agency experiences highlight the importance of defining the roles 

of the grant workforce.

As COFAR works to professionalize the federal grant workforce, we 

recommend that the Director of OMB, in collaboration with COFAR, take 

the following two actions:

1. Include the program specialist role as COFAR develops a 

government-wide grants management competency model. This could 

be done by developing a separate model for program specialists or 

revising the existing grants management model so that it incorporates 

additional competencies for program specialists.

2. Distinguish between the grants management specialist role and the 

program specialist role as COFAR establishes government-wide 

certification standards for the federal grant workforce.

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretaries of the Departments of 

Education, Health and Human Services, State, and Transportation; and to 

the Directors of the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of 

Personnel Management. OMB staff provided oral comments and 

concurred with our findings and recommendations. OMB staff, Education, 

HHS, and DOT also provided technical comments on the draft that we 

incorporated, as appropriate.

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the 

Secretaries of the Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation, and the Directors of the Office of 

Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management. In 

addition, the report will be available on our web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions regarding this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-6806 or by email at czerwinskis@gao.gov. 

Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

Agency Comments
 

Page 26 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made 

major contributions to this report are listed in appendix V.

Stanley J. Czerwinski

Director

Strategic Issues
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 27 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

In order to better understand how the federal workforce responsible for 

managing grants is trained, and what challenges and good practices 

exist, we (1) described the federal grant workforce at selected agencies 

and analyzed the challenge of identifying the workforce government-wide; 

and (2) examined selected good practices agencies used and challenges, 

if any, they faced in training the grant workforce, as well as potential 

implications of these practices and challenges for government-wide 

efforts to develop grants training standards.

To obtain a broad view of how the grant workforce is trained governmentwide, we reviewed relevant federal laws and administrative guidance and 

conducted a survey of chief learning officers (CLO) at the 24 Chief 

Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies. The survey questionnaire included 

questions on grants-specific training, certification, administration and 

development of training, and challenges and good practices in training the 

grant workforce. Two agencies, the General Services Administration and 

the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), were dropped from our 

survey after officials in those agencies stated that they did not have any 

personnel actively working on grants. Each of the remaining 22 agencies 

responded to the survey, resulting in a 100 percent response rate from 

CFO Act agencies with an active grant workforce. The questionnaires 

were sent to the CLOs but they were asked to share them, as needed, 

with other knowledgeable agency staff in order to provide an informed 

response. Agencies were asked to return a single questionnaire that best 

represented their practices and challenges as a whole. Four agencies 

returned multiple questionnaires from sub-agency components. To 

address this, we developed a methodology for combining responses in 

order to formulate an agency-wide response. We also conducted followup conversations with agencies to clarify responses or collect additional 

details. 

To obtain illustrative examples of experiences, challenges, and good 

practices in training the grant workforce, we conducted additional reviews 

at four agencies. We selected these agencies from among the 22 CFO 

Act agencies with an active grant workforce after considering the 

agencies’ total grant obligations, number of grant programs, and number 

of discrete grants awarded (using fiscal year 2011 USASpending.gov 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 28 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

data).1 In addition, in making our selections we considered whether an 

agency had grants training or certification requirements, any good grants 

training practices as identified by its CLO, the existence of significant 

issues regarding grants or training as reported in our prior work, the 

number of grant-making operating divisions, the variety of grant types 

(formula, block, and project), major grant issue areas (such as health, 

education, and transportation) and functional areas (such as service 

delivery, construction, and research). The scope of this review was limited 

to federal grants and did not include cooperative agreements or other 

types of federal assistance. We selected agencies that administered a 

large majority of federal grant obligations and also collectively 

represented a range of positions on these other criteria. The four 

agencies we selected—the Departments of Education (Education), Health 

and Human Services (HHS), State (State), and Transportation (DOT)—

account for over 84 percent of the federal government’s total grant dollars 

obligated in fiscal year 2012, manage all three major grant types, and 

cover a broad range of grant issue areas. At each of these agencies, we 

reviewed documents including training materials and grants policy 

directives and interviewed training officials. We interviewed agency-level 

grants and training officials at each agency, and at the agencies we 

selected where grants training is generally managed at the sub-agency 

level—HHS, Education, and DOT—we also interviewed officials at 

selected sub-agencies. These sub-agency components were selected 

using criteria similar to that detailed above for agency selection. We also 

collected information on training courses, their costs, and the grant 

workforce at both the agency-level as well as all grant-making subagency components.

Since the focus of our work was to better understand and provide 

information on how the federal government trains its grant workforce, we 

conducted our reviews at each selected agency to identify examples of 

grants training experiences, challenges, and good practices, and not to 

audit their grants training programs. Accordingly, we did not seek to make 

an evaluative judgment of the specific grants training programs at the four 

selected agencies nor assess the prevalence of the practices or 

 

1 USASpending.gov was established by OMB to enhance the transparency of government 

expenditures. For grant awards, federal agencies report the amount of obligations they 

incur and information on the recipients of those awards in accordance with OMB 

guidance. For OMB guidance see: OMB, Guidance on Data Submission under the Federal 

Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, M-09-19 (Washington, D.C.: June 1, 2009). 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 29 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

challenges we cite either within or across the four agencies. Agencies 

and sub-agency components other than those cited for a particular 

practice may or may not also be engaged in the same practices. While 

the responses and comments provided on our survey reflect the views of 

the CLOs at 22 of the CFO Act agencies, the examples of good training 

practices and challenges we identified are from the four selected 

agencies and are therefore not generalizable to other agencies. To 

examine good practices that agencies use in training the grant workforce, 

we used criteria from our work on strategic training and workforce 

planning in the federal government, internal control standards for training, 

and OPM guidance.2

To describe the federal grant workforce and the challenge of identifying 

the workforce government-wide, we collected workforce data from the 

four case example agencies, reviewed data on the grants management 

specialist job series 1109, and interviewed officials at OPM. We 

requested data from our four case example agencies on the makeup of 

their grant workforce. To identify their grant workforce, cognizant grant

officials at the agency or sub-agency component level generally made 

judgments regarding which employees to include and then used agency 

personnel databases to access job series data associated with those 

identified. To assess the reliability of these data, we examined the 

workforce data provided by the agencies for anomalies. This included 

obtaining data on the total number of federal employees in the 1109 

grants management specialist series for each of the four selected 

agencies from FedScope.3 We then compared the numbers of 1109 

series employees reported by the agencies to the data in FedScope in 

order to confirm the data collected from the agencies for the 1109 series. 

Only minor differences in the total number of series 1109 employees were 

noted and this was expected due to the 4-month difference in the time 

frames covered by the data. We also interviewed officials at OPM to 

discuss the development of the 1109 job series for grants management 

 

2 GAO, Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development Efforts 

in the Federal Government, GAO-04-546G (Washington, D.C.: March 2004); GAO, 

Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, GAO-04-39

(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003); and GAO, Internal Control and Management Tool, 

GAO-01-1008G (Washington, D.C.: August 2001).

3 FedScope is an OPM-sponsored, online information system that supports statistical 

analyses of federal human resources data. It can be accessed at 

http://www.fedscope.opm.gov/index.asp. 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 30 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

specialists and challenges associated with grant workforce identification. 

Based on our tests and discussions with agency officials, we determined 

that the data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. To 

obtain broad views on how the grant workforce is trained governmentwide, we interviewed officials at the Office of Management and Budget 

and OPM. To understand the efforts of the Council on Financial 

Assistance Reform we reviewed documents produced by the Council and 

interviewed staff at OMB.

We conducted this performance audit from May 2012 through June 2013, 

in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and

conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 31 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

The Department of Education (Education) is the third largest federal 

grant-making agency in total value of funding, administering 

approximately $44 billion in grants in fiscal year 2012. The agency 

administers formula, block, and project grants through eight program 

offices (see table 2). These grants support the nation’s schools and 

students through programs such as Title I, Impact Aid, and Special 

Education.

Grants training is managed at both the agency- and program-office level.

Program offices within Education have the option of setting training 

requirements for their grant workforce and grants training is required in 

three of the agency’s eight grant-making program offices. Training 

requirements generally consist of several courses in grants management.

On an agency-wide level, only one course is required; this course focuses 

on discretionary grant license holders. In addition to grants training 

courses, other related training opportunities offered by Education include 

informal brown bag sessions, mentoring, and on-the-job training.

Table 2: Department of Education Grant-Making Program Offices by Percent of Total Education Federal Funding for Grants in 

Fiscal Year 2012, Examples of Grant Programs, and Grants Training Requirements

Education grant-making 

program offices

Percent of total 

Education federal funding

in grants FY2012 Examples of grant programs a

Grants training 

requirements (as set 

by the program office)

Office of Elementary and 

Secondary Education 

b

52% Title I Grants to Local Educational 

Agencies; Impact Aid

Required training 

courses

Office of Special Education 

and Rehabilitative Services 

36% Special Education Grants to States; 

Rehabilitation Services 

Training offered; no 

training requirements

Office of Postsecondary 

Education 

5% Higher Education Institutional Aid; 

International Research and Studies

Training offered; no 

training requirements

Office of Vocational and Adult 

Education 

4% Adult Education - Basic Grants to States; 

Career and Technical Education - 

National Programs

Training offered; no

training requirements

Office of Innovation and 

Improvement 

2% Teacher Quality Partnership Grants; 

Charter Schools

Required training 

courses

Institute of Education Sciences 1% Education Research, Development and 

Dissemination; Research in Special 

Education

Required training 

courses

Implementation and Support 

Unit 

<1% Race to the Top Training offered; no 

training requirements

Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at 

the Departments of Education, Health and 

Human Services, State, and Transportation

Department of 

Education 

General Overview
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 32 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Education grant-making 

program offices

Percent of total 

Education federal funding

in grants FY2012 Examples of grant programs a

Grants training 

requirements (as set 

by the program office)

Office of English Language 

Acquisition 

b

<1% Foreign Language Assistance No training requirements

Source: Funding data from USASpending.gov as of April 11, 2013; grant program titles collected from the Catalog of Federal Domestic 

Assistance; GAO analysis of Education data.

a

Numbers may not add to 100 percent due to rounding. 

b

The agency-wide grants training requirement (one course for those holding discretionary grant 

licenses) is not included in this table. Grants training requirements in this table reflect what program 

offices set specifically for their grant workforce.

As of December 2012, Education officials estimated their total grant 

workforce to be approximately 761 employees, out of a total of more than 

4,200 employees. The agency has no employees classified in the grants 

management specialist series because it uses program specialists to 

manage the entire grant process and because of essential job 

requirements of the six job series in which the program specialists are 

currently classified (see appendix III for a complete breakdown of the 

Education grant workforce by job series).

According to an Education official and agency documentation, the agency

incorporates grants management competencies in the competency 

models for at least five of six job series which comprise the grant 

workforce. For example, technical competencies for management and 

program analysts (series 343) include proficiency in formula and 

discretionary grants and grant monitoring, as well as demonstrating 

programmatic understanding and knowledge.

Competencies are also used to identify training needs through a 

competency assessment for mission critical occupations; five of these 

occupations were positions that Education identified as being part of the 

grant workforce. For example, Education’s fiscal year 2011 assessment 

determined that proficiency gaps existed in fiscal monitoring; policy, 

legislation, and administrative rulemaking; and audit-related 

competencies. The agency developed a strategy to close those gaps 

through formal classroom training as well as web-based training and 

informal seminars on the topics identified. A grants training official told us 

Grant Workforce

Selected Grants

Management Training 

Practices

Grants Management 

Competencies and Assessing 

Training Needs 
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 33 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

that several of these courses are available and more are being developed 

to be offered in fiscal year 2013.

In addition to the agency-wide competency assessment, one program 

office, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, conducted its 

own learning needs analysis through a contractor in 2012. This analysis 

assessed the learning needs for two positions, one of which was a grants 

specialist. The assessment was conducted through a survey of nonsupervisory staff within the program office, who were asked to indicate

the importance of tasks or content knowledge to their day-to-day work 

and the type of professional development desired in the next year. As a 

result of this learning needs assessment, a program office official 

reported that data analysis courses were procured to support professional 

development among staff members. This official also told us that while 

the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education plans to contract for a 

learning needs assessment every 3 years, they also have developed a 

tool for managers and staff to use annually in between external 

assessments in order to help grants specialists prepare their individual 

development plans.

The agency requires one grants training course agency-wide; this annual 

one-hour briefing is intended for those employees holding a discretionary 

grant license, which allows them to obligate and award grant funds. 

According to an Education official, the annual briefing is designed to 

provide license holders an update on legislative and regulatory 

developments that impact the agency’s grants administration policies.

The briefing also offers license holders an opportunity to share best 

practices, common concerns, and recommendations on how to improve 

the grants process.

In another agency-wide effort, according to agency officials, Education 

worked with a commercial vendor in 2010 to develop and customize a 

curriculum of eight grants management courses that lead to a grants 

management training certificate. Topics covered by the courses include 

grants monitoring, cost principles, administrative requirements, and 

accountability. These courses are offered to cohorts of 35 employees and 

each of the agency’s program offices receives a certain number of slots in 

each cohort. Given criteria from the central learning and development 

office, it is the responsibility of the program offices to determine which of 

their employees are substantially involved in grants administration and 

management and would most benefit from the grants management 

curriculum. By offering the eight courses to cohorts of employees, 

Grants Training
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 34 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Education officials told us that they saved over $64,000 per cohort, or 31 

percent of the cost to provide the courses to 35 employees individually in 

fiscal year 2013.

As reported by officials in each grant-making program office, 3 of 8 

program offices at Education require grants training and 7 of 8 do offer 

grants training courses or other training opportunities to the grant 

workforce. For example, the Office of Innovation and Improvement offers 

an on-boarding program for new staff that includes courses on grants 

management and grants monitoring. In addition to these courses, this 

office holds internal brown bag sessions and a speaker series to address 

grant issues.

According to agency officials, Education does not require a grants 

management certification. Although it does offer training that leads to a 

grants management certificate, it does not offer a grants management 

certification program for its grant workforce. 

Officials in Education’s program offices, as well as officials in the 

centralized offices that offer training, told us that to evaluate Education’s 

grants training courses offered in fiscal years 2011 and 2012 they 

collected information on participant satisfaction for a majority of the 

courses offered. Many officials did not respond or did not know if they 

collected information for other types of evaluation. However, those that 

did respond reported that they collected information on knowledge gained 

for more than half of courses offered and did not collect information on 

the impact on individual behavior or return on investment for any courses 

offered.

Education officials said they plan to begin collecting information on the 

impact of the commercial vendor-provided courses that make up their 

grants management training certificate on individual and organizational 

performance in the summer of 2013. To assess this training, Education 

expects to distribute a survey to training participants as well as their 

supervisors. Based on a prototype we obtained for review, the survey will 

ask about the extent to which training has been applied on the job as well 

as the courses’ impacts on grants management performance and 

achieving organizational grants management goals.

In addition to measuring the impact of individual courses, Education 

officials told us that they measure the impact of training on performance 

through multi-year analysis of the results of the biennial mission critical 

occupations competency assessment. The assessment measures the 

Certification

Other Practices 
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 35 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

current and desired proficiency of employees in particular competencies 

and allows Education to target proficiency gaps for closure. According to 

these officials, assessment of proficiency gaps helps them to understand 

the developmental needs of the workforce and then provide training that 

targets these needs. By examining changes in workforce proficiencies 

over multiple years, Education hopes to assess the effectiveness of its 

training curricula.

HHS is the largest federal grant-making agency in terms of total federal 

grant funds, administering approximately $333 billion in grants during 

fiscal year 2012. Formula, block, and project grants are administered 

across 13 operating divisions within HHS (see table 3).1 These grants 

support medical services and research including Medicaid, Temporary 

Assistance for Needy Families, Head Start, health centers, medical 

research, and preventive health services. Grants training is managed by 

the operating divisions, with general training standards and guidance 

offered through the Office of Grants and Acquisition Policy and 

Accountability’s division of grants. Training in grants management is 

required for at least part of the grant workforce in 11 of 13 operating 

divisions, and these requirements range from a set of courses to 

professional development activities toward earning a certification in grants 

management.

 

1 HHS officials told us that 10 operating divisions and three offices within the Immediate

Office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services administer grants. For the purposes 

of this report, we refer to each of these 13 grant-making offices as operating divisions. 

Within the Immediate Office of the Secretary, the three offices that administer grants 

include the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the Office 

of the Assistant Secretary for Health, and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health 

Information Technology. 

Department of Health 

and Human Services

General Overview
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 36 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Table 3: HHS Grant-Making Operating Divisions by Percent of Total HHS Federal Funding for Grants in Fiscal Year 2012, 

Examples of Grant Programs, and Grants Training and Certification Requirements

HHS grant-making

operating division

Percent of total 

HHS federal funding

in grants FY2012 Examples of grant programs Grants training and certification

Centers for Medicare & 

Medicaid Services 

a

77% Medicaid; Children’s Health Insurance 

Program 

Project grants: Required training 

coursesb Formula grants (e.g., 

Medicaid): training offered

Administration for Children 

and Families 

c

14% Temporary Assistance for Needy 

Families; Head Start

Required training courses and 

optional certification

National Institutes of Health 5% Allergy, Immunology and 

Transplantation Research; Biomedical 

Research and Research Training 

Required training courses and 

certification

Health Resources and 

Services Administration 

2% Health Center Program; HIV Care 

Formula Grants

Required training courses for 

program specialists. Required 

certification for program specialists 

expected to be implemented in fiscal 

year 2013

Substance Abuse and Mental 

Health Services 

Administration 

<1% Block Grants for Prevention and 

Treatment of Substance Abuse; Sober 

Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking 

Act 

Training offered; no training 

requirements

Administration for Community 

Living 

<1% Special Programs for the Aging; 

Nutrition Services Incentive Program 

Required training courses

Immediate Office of the 

Secretary of Health and 

Human Services

b

<1%

d

National Bioterrorism Hospital 

Preparedness Program; Pregnancy 

Assistance 

Required training courses in one of 

the three grant-making offices

Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention 

b

<1% Preventive Health Services Sexually 

Transmitted Diseases Control Grants; 

Preventive Health and Health Services 

Block Grant 

Required training courses

Indian Health Service 

b

<1% Special Diabetes Program for Indians 

Diabetes Prevention and Treatment 

Projects; Demonstration Projects for 

Indian Health 

Required training courses and 

certification

Agency for Healthcare 

Research and Quality 

<1% Research on Healthcare Costs, Quality 

and Outcomes; National Research 

Service Awards Health Services 

Research Training 

Required training courses

Food and Drug Administration 

b

<1% Food and Drug Administration Research Training offered; no training 

requirements; required certification 

program expected to be 

implemented in fiscal year 2014

Source: Funding data from USASpending.gov as of April 11, 2013; grant program titles collected from the Catalog on Federal Domestic 

Assistance; GAO analysis of HHS data.

a

Training courses required may not be mandatory for all members of the grant workforce. Unless 

otherwise indicated, training and certification is required for grants management specialists.
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 37 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

b

Officials in these operating divisions told us that they require grants management specialists to 

complete a set of grants management courses. These same courses are also required as a key 

component of certification in the operating divisions that have implemented or proposed a certification 

program. CMS officials told us that, while they do not have a formal certification program in place for 

project grants, they consider this set of courses to meet the HHS-wide certification requirements. For 

the Immediate Office of the Secretary, the set of courses was only required in the Office of the 

National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

c

CMS officials told us that they do not require grants training for Medicaid and other formula grants. 

They further explained that, because external vendors do not offer training that addresses what they 

viewed as the unique needs of Medicaid, CMS offers training on an as-needed basis. Most training 

occurs on-the-job, but can also include courses on topics such as financial management.

d

Within the Immediate Office of the Secretary, three offices administer grants—the Office of the 

Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, 

and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

HHS officials in each of the 13 operating divisions that administer grants, 

as well as officials in the agency’s Division of Grants, estimated the total 

grant workforce to be approximately 2,166 employees, out of a total 

workforce of over 86,500. All HHS grant-making operating divisions have 

at least some employees classified in the grants management 

occupational series (1109). These grants management specialists work 

with program specialists to manage grants.

HHS does not have agency-wide competencies for the grant workforce, 

however several operating divisions at HHS reported having grants 

management competencies to support their training efforts. These 

competency models vary across each operating division. One operating 

division, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), reported 

applying OPM’s grants management competency model directly, while 

several others had a subset of competencies similar to that included in 

OPM’s model. Three agencies, the Health Resources and Services 

Administration (HRSA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

(CDC), and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and 

Response (ASPR) identified separate competency models for program 

specialists. 

At HHS, officials in several operating divisions told us that they use both 

competencies and individual development plans or assessments to 

determine training needs. For example, HRSA conducted a training 

needs assessment that highlighted areas for additional training in grants 

Grant Workforce

Selected Grants 

Management Training 

Practices

Grants Management 

Competencies and Assessing 

Training Needs 
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 38 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

management. Based on this and the identification of program specialists 

as being critical to the grants management process, HRSA developed a 

training program for program specialists that will support a certification 

requirement that officials expect to implement in fiscal year 2013. HRSA 

officials told us that they are working toward developing a similar program 

for grants management specialists. 

According to agency officials, HHS does not require any agency-wide 

grants training, however, all operating divisions at HHS reported offering 

grants training to their grant workforce with 85 percent (11 of 13) of HHS 

operating divisions requiring some amount of training. Training courses 

offered include general grants management training courses that cover 

topics such as OMB circulars, cost principles, and monitoring. In addition, 

the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and HRSA have developed 

customized training specific to their operating divisions and grants. 

According to officials and documentation, NIH requires a month-long 

orientation to grants management and HRSA developed a three-course 

introduction to grants management. Several operating divisions offer 

informal training courses, webinars or other sessions to address current 

topics or specific issues. For example, the Administration for Children and 

Families (ACF) reported offering several informal courses including one 

on child welfare/child support and another on Temporary Assistance for 

Needy Families fiscal management.

While HHS developed policy and guidance that required agency-wide 

certification of its grant workforce in 1995, only four of its operating 

divisions have taken steps to implement it. Two of the 13 HHS operating 

divisions—NIH and the Indian Health Service—required grants 

management specialists to be certified in grants management, while ACF 

offers its certification program as an option to grants management 

specialists. Officials in the Food and Drug Administration have developed 

a proposal for a similar certification program and told us that they plan to 

implement it in fiscal year 2014. Each of these certification programs is 

based upon the agency-wide Grants Management Professional 

Development program established by HHS in 1995. This program was not 

widely enforced due to changes in leadership, but the requirement still 

resides in the agency’s Grants Policy Directives and Awarding Agency 

Grants Administration Manual. In addition to these four certification 

programs for grants management specialists, HRSA is developing a 

required certification program for program specialists that will be fully 

implemented in fiscal year 2013. Once the program specialist certification 

is in place, HRSA officials told us that they plan to develop a similar 

certification for grants management specialists. Finally, five operating 

Grants Training

Certification 
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 39 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

divisions require their grants management specialists to complete a set of 

grants management courses from an external vendor, although they do 

not have the certification program in place. These same courses are an 

integral part of the certification program that the four operating divisions 

described above have implemented or proposed.

While the agency-wide certification program has not been fully 

implemented across all operating divisions, HHS officials told us that they 

have an agency-wide certification process in place for those meeting the 

requirements of the highest certification level—an operating division’s 

chief grants management officer. In addition, in the years after the 

certification program was developed, officials told us that the agency 

provided grants training courses both internally through HHS University 

as well as through an external vendor to make grants training available to 

the operating divisions.

HHS operating divisions, as well as the agency’s Division of Grants, 

reported that to evaluate their grants training courses offered in fiscal 

years 2011 and 2012 they

• collected information on participant satisfaction for a majority of the 

courses offered,

• collected information on knowledge gained in over half of the courses 

offered, and

• did not collect information on the impact on individual behavior or 

return on investment for any courses offered.

However, officials explained that while they understand that information 

gathered on participant satisfaction for courses taken by commercial 

vendors is available from the vendor for review, these results are typically 

not requested by the agency.

Other Practices 
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 40 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

The Department of State (State) administered over $511 million in project 

grants in fiscal year 2012.2 These grants fund a variety of assistance 

programs worldwide, including those supporting Democracy, Human 

Rights and Labor; Weapons Removal and Abatement; Professional, 

Cultural, and Educational Exchange Programs; Public Diplomacy 

Programs around the world including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; 

Combating Human Trafficking; and Refugee Assistance, among others 

(see table 4).

At State, training of the grant workforce is managed at the agency level 

through the Office of the Procurement Executive (A/OPE). A/OPE sets 

training requirements for the grant workforce and collaborates with the 

Foreign Service Institute to help ensure that training courses are 

appropriately developed and delivered. Additional training on financial 

management of grants is developed by the Office of Federal Assistance 

Financial Management. Training and certification is required for all grants 

officers and grants officer representatives. While training for grants is 

centrally managed, each grant may be managed by a single or multiple 

bureaus depending on the type of assistance being provided. For 

instance, for grants that support a particular country or region, such as 

Iraq Assistance Programs, multiple bureaus may manage the funds to 

support a range of assistance programs. On the other hand, if the grant 

supports assistance in a particular program, such as educational 

exchanges, a single bureau, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural 

Affairs, may manage most or all of the funds.

 

2 While the scope of this report excludes cooperative agreements, State administers over 

$823 million in cooperative agreements. Officials told us that the grant workforce that 

manages project grants is also responsible for managing cooperative agreements and 

receives the same training.

Department of State

General Overview
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 41 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Table 4: Examples of Department of State Federal Funding for Grants in Fiscal Year 2012

Grant program

Total federal funding

in grants FY2012

Percent of

total federal funding

in grants FY2012

International Programs to Support Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

a

$134,919,683 26

Weapons Removal and Abatement $101,689,374 20

Professional and Cultural Exchange Programs - Citizen Exchanges $42,079,026 8 

Public Diplomacy Programs for Afghanistan and Pakistan $33,276,979 7 

General Department of State Assistance $33,154,221 6 

Middle East Partnership Initiative $19,484,689 4 

Criminal Justice Systems $18,815,930 3 

East Asia and Pacific Grants Program $17,197,277 3 

International Programs to Combat Human Trafficking $14,912,809 3 

Public Diplomacy Programs $12,920,058 3 

EUR/ACE Humanitarian Assistance Program $10,248,694 2 

Overseas Refugee Assistance Programs for Africa $7,704,597 2 

Professional and Cultural Exchange Programs – Special Professional and 

Cultural Programs

$7,036,952 1 

Counternarcotics $6,890,530 1 

Environmental and Scientific Partnerships and Programs $6,788,996 1 

Other $44,259,514 9 

Total $511,379,329

Source: Funding data from USASpending.gov as of April 11, 2013.

Note: Grants at State can be managed by multiple bureaus so we do not break down the grant 

funding by bureau.

a

Numbers may not add to 100 percent due to rounding.

At State, agency policy states that grants are managed by warranted 

grants officers who are authorized to award grants up to a specified 

amount. Grants officers appoint grants officer representatives (GOR) to 

assist with technical and programmatic aspects of the grant. These two 

positions correspond to the grants management specialist and program 

specialist, respectively, as described in our report. In addition, financial 

management officers assist with fiscal management aspects of the grants 

process. State estimated that there are approximately 605 grants officers, 

most of whom are stationed overseas. In addition, 280 positions, 

including financial management officers, support those grants officers at 

overseas posts and in bureaus domestically. The GOR certification 

program was effective as of January 2013 and GORs had up to six 

Grant Workforce
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 42 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

months to meet the certification requirements, thus State did not yet have 

a complete accounting of all certified GORs at the time of publication. A 

full accounting is expected by late summer 2013 when all GORs are 

required to be certified and registered in State’s database that tracks both 

certified grants officers and GORs.

The grant workforce consists primarily of Foreign Service officers serving 

in posts around the world. State officials explained that, at these posts, 

not all Foreign Service officers work on grants, but those that do are 

responsible for multiple tasks, including managing grants. As a result, 

there are a lot of personnel that work on grants, and for many of the 740 

Foreign Service officers identified as part of the grant workforce, grantrelated tasks are a part-time responsibility.

State officials told us that, during the time of this review, they did not use 

grants management competencies for the purposes of identifying training.

Beyond the required training and certification for grants officers and 

GORs, these officials explained that they assess any additional training 

needs as needed through management reviews. For instance, after 

review of grants administration at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural 

Affairs, it was determined that the grant workforce was lacking expertise 

in several areas. To address the specific training needs of the bureau’s 

employees, A/OPE developed training for the bureau that augmented the 

formal training courses.

State requires all grants officers and GORs to complete training in grants 

management. Course topics include an introduction to grants and 

cooperative agreements, an introduction to monitoring grants, and ethics.

As State officials explained, some of the required training courses were 

developed within the agency because the general training available from 

commercial vendors did not meet the needs of their staff. For example, 

most of State’s grant recipients are foreign organizations, and the training 

from commercial vendors does not include specific grants management 

scenarios that staff are likely to encounter with foreign grant recipients. 

State officials told us that because OMB administrative guidance does not 

apply to the overseas grant environment the agency trains the grant 

workforce on agency-specific policies and procedures. After designing its 

own courses, State was also able to offer the course through a distanceSelected Grants 

Management Training 

Practices

Grants Management 

Competencies and Assessing 

Training Needs 

Grants Training
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 43 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

learning system that allowed grants officers and GORs overseas to 

access the training.

In addition to formal training courses, State offers informal training to its 

grant workforce through a variety of mechanisms. These include informal 

training sessions and a variety of online information sharing. For example, 

officials told us that, at quarterly meetings facilitated by State’s central 

grants policy office, roundtable discussions allow employees to share 

knowledge and perspectives with their peers on topics such as monitoring 

grant programs through site visits. Officials told us that State has several 

methods for sharing information, including an online platform where 

employees can find the latest information on policy guidance and 

regulations, grant reports, and grant systems as well as online 

repositories for frequently asked questions on agency grants policy and 

financial management of grants.

As described in the agency’s grants policy directives, State has 

implemented two certification programs—one for grants officers and the 

other for GORs. Both certifications require completion of specific grants 

training and have continuing education requirements. The grants officer 

certification also requires certain levels of education or experience.

Certified grants officers are warranted to issue federal grant awards up to 

a specified value depending on the level of certification. As the value of 

grant award increases, the amount of training required for the certification 

also increases. All levels of grants officer certification require completion

of a certain number of training hours every 3 years in order to renew the 

certification. GORs must complete two grants management courses 

before obtaining the grants officer representative certification. After 

certification the GOR is eligible to be designated to a specific agreement 

by the grants officers. In addition, all GORs must update their training with 

additional grants training every 3 years. The grants officer representative 

certification was implemented in January 2013 to help address 

inconsistencies in the level of training for grants officer representatives 

across the agency. Staff completion of both grants certification 

requirements is tracked in a database maintained by the Office of the 

Procurement Executive. 

State officials reported that to evaluate grants training courses offered in 

fiscal years 2011 and 2012 they

• collected information on participant satisfaction for all four of the 

grants management courses offered,

Certification

Other Practices 
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 44 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

• collected information on knowledge gained in one of these courses, 

and

• did not collect information on the impact on individual behavior or 

return on investment for any courses offered.

Officials indicated that the feedback they received from participants on 

commercial vendor courses is what prompted them to develop 

customized courses to reflect State grants management practices and 

scenarios.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) is the second largest federal 

grant-making agency in total value of federal grant funds, administering 

approximately $52 billion in grants in fiscal year 2012. Formula and 

project grants are administered across 10 operating administrations within 

DOT (see table 5). These grants support the nation’s highways, mass 

transit systems, railroads, and airports through programs such as 

Highway Planning and Construction and the Airport Improvement 

Program.

While the Financial Assistance Policy and Oversight Office issues 

agency-wide communications on general training requirements and works 

with OMB on government-wide training efforts, grants training is managed 

by the 10 grant-making operating administrations. The operating 

administrations have the option of setting grants training requirements, 

and requirements exist in 7 of the 10 operating administrations. These 

requirements range from a single course to a set of courses that lead to a 

grants management certificate. In addition to grants training courses 

required or offered, other training opportunities offered by operating 

administrations to address grant issues include online webinars, internal 

brown bags, working groups, and on-the-job training.

Department of 

Transportation 

General Overview
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 45 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Table 5: DOT Grant-Making Operating Administrations by Percent of Total DOT Federal Funding for Grants in Fiscal Year 

2012, Examples of Grant Programs, and Grants Training Requirements

DOT grant-making

operating administration

Percent of total

DOT federal funding

in grants FY2012 Examples of grant programs a Grants training requirements 

Federal Highway Administration 68% Highway Planning and Construction; 

Recreational Trails Program

Training offered; no 

training requirements

Federal Transit Administration 24% Federal Transit Formula Grants; Federal 

Transit Capital Investment Grants

Required training courses

Federal Aviation Administration 6% Airport Improvement Program; Aviation 

Research Grants

Required training courses

National Highway Traffic Safety 

Administration 

b

1% State and Community Highway Safety; 

Alcohol Impaired Driving 

Countermeasures Incentive Grants

Training offered; no 

training requirements

Federal Motor Carrier Safety 

Administration 

<1% Border Enforcement Grants; Commercial 

Driver’s License Program Improvement 

Grant

Required training courses

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials 

Safety Administration 

<1% Technical Assistance Grants; Pipeline 

Safety Program State Base Grant

Required training courses

Research and Innovative 

Technology Administration 

<1% University Transportation Centers 

Program; Biobased Transportation 

Research

Training offered; no 

training requirements

Federal Railroad Administration <1% High-Speed Rail Corridors and Intercity 

Passenger Rail Service—Capital 

Assistance Grants; Railroad 

Development

Required training course

Office of the Secretary <1% National Infrastructure Investments Required training course

Maritime Administration 0% c America’s Marine Highway Grants Required training courses

Source: Funding data from USASpending.gov as of April 11, 2013; grant program titles collected from the Catalog of Federal Domestic 

Assistance; GAO analysis of DOT data.

a

Numbers may not add to 100 percent due to rounding.

b

Grants training requirements only applicable for the Office of Airports within FAA. The Office of 

Airports manages a majority of FAA’s grant funds.

c

The Maritime Administration did not obligate grant funds in fiscal year 2012, according to 

USASpending.gov data as of April 11, 2013.

DOT officials in each of the 10 grant-making operating administrations 

estimated the total grant workforce to be approximately 1,313 employees 

and the total workforce at the agency is over 57,000 employees. The 

agency has only one employee classified in the 1109 grants management 

series because it employs program specialists to manage the entire 

grants process. However, in the course of our review, one operating 

administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), 

established a grants management office and hired employees in the 1109 

Grant Workforce
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 46 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

grants management series to support this office. Program specialists at 

DOT are classified in more than 30 different job series (see appendix III 

for a complete breakdown of the DOT grant workforce by job series).

While DOT does not have agency-wide competencies for the grant 

workforce, operating administrations use other methods to identify 

training needs for the grant workforce. For example, officials at the Office 

of Airports in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told us that they 

use the FAA Human Resource Policy Manual and a standardized job 

analysis tool to help supervisors identify and prioritize appropriate training 

for employees’ individual development plans. In broader efforts to assess 

training needs, a Federal Transit Administration official told us that they 

have contracted with a private company to conduct a comprehensive 

training needs assessment and develop a 3-year plan to address the 

training needs. One operating administration, the National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), told us that they have draft grants 

management competencies that are scheduled for finalization by the end 

of fiscal year 2013. According to NHTSA officials, the competencies will 

be used to conduct periodic assessments, identify training needs, and 

develop individual development plans. 

According to agency officials, DOT does not require any agency-wide 

grants training, however, all of the grant-making operating administrations 

at DOT offer grants training to their grant workforce and 70 percent (7 of 

10) of the operating administrations require some amount of grants 

training. Training courses offered, according to operating administration 

officials, include general grants management training, such as courses on 

OMB circulars, costs principles, and monitoring, as well as customized 

training specific to the operating administrations’ grant programs, 

including FMCSA’s 3-day grants management manual training, the

Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) online training courses on 

planning and research grants, and the Office of Airports’ 3-day course on 

airport financial assistance, provided by the FAA Academy. External 

vendors as well as the agency provide grants training at the operating 

administrations. Agency-provided grants training is developed by subjectmatter experts within the operating administrations or by agency-affiliated 

training institutes. For example, for FHWA, the National Highway Institute 

has developed a series of web-based and classroom courses on planning 

Selected Grants 

Management Training 

Practices

Grants Management 

Competencies and Assessing 

Training Needs 

Grants Training
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 47 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

and research grants. Topics covered in this series include common grant 

rules, grant administration, cost principles, and audits.

DOT employs program specialists to manage the entire grant process 

and, operating administrations provide training on both programmatic and 

technical aspects of grants as well as on general grants management.

For example, officials at FAA’s Office of Airports told us that their grant 

workforce needed highly specific technical and professional knowledge, 

skills, and abilities related to airport planning, engineering, construction, 

and operational and environmental matters. The Office of Airports used 

courses from the FAA Academy to provide training that hones the 

technical knowledge of its grant workforce.

DOT operating administrations use methods other than formal courses to 

train the grant workforce. For example, a FMCSA official said that they 

have conducted webinars on specific grant issues such as audits and 

indirect costs. These webinars are recorded and posted to the operating 

administration’s website for others to view. In another example, a FHWA 

official told us that in addition to formal classroom instruction they 

encourage other training methods such as on-the-job training, working 

one-on-one with a team leader, and self-paced learning through 

instructional resources, such as the DOT Financial Assistance Guidance 

Manual, on agency websites.

According to agency officials, DOT did not have an agency-wide 

requirement of a grants management certification for the grant workforce.

Also, although some operating administrations offered training that leads 

to a grants management certificate, none of the operating administrations 

required certification for their grant workforce.

DOT operating administrations reported that to evaluate their grants 

training courses offered in fiscal years 2011 and 2012 they

• collected information on participant satisfaction for a majority of the 

courses offered,

• collected information on knowledge gained in less than half of the 

courses offered,

• collected information on the impact on individual behavior for seven 

grants training courses, offered by NHTSA, and

• did not collect information on return on investment for any courses 

offered.

Certification

Other Practices 
Appendix II: Overview of Grants Training at the 

Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation

Page 48 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

In order to assess the impact of training on individual behavior, officials at 

NHTSA told us that for grants training courses provided by the 

Transportation Safety Institute, course participants receive an evaluation 

form 90 days after they take the course. This evaluation asks, among 

other questions, what the participants have learned from the courses that 

has impacted their performance at work and if the courses have better 

equipped them to plan, develop, and implement highway safety 

programs. The information collected through the evaluations is not 

systematically analyzed beyond a basic review although the comments 

are considered when updating course curricula, according to NHTSA 

officials.
Appendix III: Grant Workforce by Job Series 

for the Departments of Education, Health and 

Human Services, State, and Transportation as 

of June 2013

Page 49 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Series number Series name Education HHS State a DOT Total Percent

1109 Grants Management Series 733 25 1 759 14.81

Foreign Service Foreign Service b 740c 740 14.44

685 Public Health Program Specialist 611 611 11.92

343 Management and Program Analysis Series 257 93 6 56 412 8.04

501 Financial Administration and Program Series 200 10 157 367 7.16

1720 Education Program Series 290 290 5.66

2101 Transportation Specialist 187 187 3.65

301 Miscellaneous Administration and Program Series 71 16 7 84 178 3.47

101 Social Science Series 40 115 155 3.02

810 Civil Engineering Series 139 139 2.71

510 Accounting Series 90 10 14 114 2.22

20 Community Planning Series 113 113 2.20

1101 General Business and Industry Series 70 6 21 7 104 2.03

2125 Highway Safety Series 101 101 1.97

340 Program Management Series 8 89 97 1.89

107 Health Insurance Administration Series 86 86 1.68

560 Budget Analysis Series 12 60 8 80 1.56

801 General Engineering Series 2 67 69 1.35

601 General Health Science Series 56 56 1.09

28 Environmental Protection Specialist 50 50 0.98

303 Miscellaneous Clerk and Assistant Series 16 33 49 0.96

2186 Technical Systems Program Manager 44 44 0.86

905 General Attorney Series 41 41 0.80

1730 Education Research Series 33 33 0.64

602 Medical Officer 29 29 0.57

610 Nurse 27 27 0.53

360 Equal Opportunity Compliance Series 27 27 0.53

1102 Contracting Series 8 3 12 23 0.45

341 Administrative Officer 23 23 0.45

318 Secretary 2 15 17 0.33

511 Auditing Series 15 15 0.29

2210 Information Technology Management Series 7 5 12 0.23

344 Management and Program Clerical and Assistance 

Series 

9 9 0.18

Appendix III: Grant Workforce by Job Series for 

the Departments of Education, Health and Human 

Services, State, and Transportation as of June 2013 
Appendix III: Grant Workforce by Job Series 

for the Departments of Education, Health and 

Human Services, State, and Transportation as 

of June 2013

Page 50 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Series number Series name Education HHS State a DOT Total Percent

US Public Health 

Service 

Commissioned 

Corps

US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps 8 8 0.16

808 Architecture Series 7 7 0.14

1160 Financial Analysis Series 6 6 0.12

505 Financial Management Series 1 2 3 6 0.12

2110 Transportation Industry Analysis Series 5 5 0.10

1530 Statistics Series 4 4 0.08

1035 Public Affairs Series 2 2 4 0.08

1701 General Education and Training Series 2 2 0.04

871 Naval Architecture Series 2 2 0.04

830 Mechanical Engineering Series 2 2 0.04

680 Dental Officer 2 2 0.04

401 General Natural Resources Management and 

Biological Sciences Series

2 2 0.04

185 Social Work Series 2 2 0.04

102 Social Science Aid and Technician 2 2 0.04

950 Paralegal Specialist 2 2 0.04

1170 Realty Series 2 2 0.04

110 Economist 2 2 0.04

1082 Writing and Editing Series 2 2 0.04

986 Legal Assistance Series 1 1 0.02

1801 General Inspection, Investigation, Enforcement, and 

Compliance Series

1 1 0.02

1529 Mathematical Statistics Series 1 1 0.02

1083 Technical Writing and Editing Series 1 1 0.02

803 Safety Engineering Series 1 1 0.02

346 Logistics Management Specialist 1 1 0.02

Total 761 2,166 885 1,313 5,125 100

Source: GAO analysis of Education, HHS, State, and DOT data.

Note: The data obtained reflect agency counts taken between December 2012 and June 2013.

a

For one operating division in HHS, the National Institutes of Health, officials reported the number of 

grants management professionals that were, or will be, subject to certification. Officials told us that 

this encompasses the majority of their grant workforce.

b

Foreign Service officers specialize in five functional areas to meet the needs of individual overseas 

posts. These include consular, economic, management, political, and public diplomacy.

c

Does not include grants officer representatives (GOR). State officials told us that they do not yet 

have a complete accounting of GORs since the program that tracks certified GORs was enacted in 

January 2013. A full accounting is expected by late summer 2013.
Appendix IV: OPM Grants Management 

Competency Model

Page 51 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

The following competency model was released by OPM in September 

2009.1 According to OPM officials, the model was developed using their 

standard approach, known as the Multipurpose Occupational Systems 

Analysis Inventory–Close Ended method. This included several 

procedures such as announcing the intent to study competencies for the 

grant workforce, collecting information from agencies, performing 

environmental scans, speaking with subject-matter experts to refine the 

competencies and job tasks, and surveying the workforce on which 

competencies are appropriate for different grades of the grant workforce. 

In addition, the officials told us that they worked with OMB’s Grants Policy 

Committee to help ensure that the survey employed a common language 

that the grant workforce across the federal government would 

understand.2

 

1 This competency model, along with complete definitions of all the terms listed, is 

available at OPM’s website. 

See http://www.chcoc.gov/transmittals/TransmittalDetails.aspx?TransmittalID=2515

(accessed March 5, 2013).

2 Since this is a government-wide model, OPM states that agencies are responsible for 

conducting job analyses for work responsibilities outside the grants management function. 

Similarly, agencies must determine the applicability of these competencies to positions 

which do not perform the full range of grants management work. 

Appendix IV: OPM Grants Management 

Competency Model
Appendix IV: OPM Grants Management 

Competency Model

Page 52 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Table 6: OPM Grants Management Competencies by Grade Level

General Competencies

Grade 7 Grade 9 Grade 11

Accountability Accountability Accountability

Arithmetic Arithmetic Arithmetic 

Attention to Detail Attention to Detail Attention to Detail

Computer Skills Computer Skills Computer Skills

Customer Service Customer Service Creative Thinking

Flexibility Decision Making Customer Service

Integrity/Honesty Flexibility Decision Making

Interpersonal Skills Information Management Flexibility

Learning Integrity/Honesty Information Management

Memory Interpersonal Skills Integrity/Honesty

Oral Communication Learning Interpersonal Skills

Planning and Evaluating Memory Learning 

Reading Oral Communication Mathematical Reasoning

Self-Management Planning and Evaluating Memory

Stress Tolerance Problem Solving Oral Communication

Teamwork Reading Organizational Awareness

Technical Competence Reasoning Planning and Evaluating 

Writing Resilience Problem Solving

Self-Management Project Management

Stress Tolerance Reading 

Teamwork Reasoning

Technical Competence Resilience

Writing Self-Management 

Stress Tolerance

Teamwork

Technical Competence

Writing

Technical Competencies

Grade 7 Grade 9 Grade 11

Compliance

Financial Assistance Mechanisms

Grants Management

Grants Management Laws, Regulations & 

Guidelines
Appendix IV: OPM Grants Management 

Competency Model

Page 53 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

General Competencies

Grade 12 Grade 13 Grade 14 Grade 15

Accountability Accountability Accountability Accountability

Arithmetic Arithmetic Arithmetic Arithmetic 

Attention to Detail Attention to Detail Attention to Detail Attention to Detail

Computer Skills Computer Skills Computer Skills Computer Skills

Conflict Management Conflict Management Conflict Management Conflict Management

Creative Thinking Creative Thinking Creative Thinking Creative Thinking

Customer Service Customer Service Customer Service Customer Service

Decision Making Decision Making Decision Making Decision Making

Flexibility Flexibility External Awareness External Awareness

Influencing/Negotiating Influencing/Negotiating Flexibility Flexibility

Information Management Information Management Influencing/Negotiating Influencing/Negotiating 

Integrity/Honesty Integrity/Honesty Information Management Information Management

Interpersonal Skills Interpersonal Skills Integrity/Honesty Integrity/Honesty

Leadership Leadership Interpersonal Skills Interpersonal Skills

Learning Learning Leadership Leadership

Memory Mathematical Reasoning Learning Learning

Oral Communication Memory Mathematical Reasoning Mathematical Reasoning

Organizational Awareness Oral Communication Memory Memory 

Partnering Organizational Awareness Oral Communication Oral Communication

Planning and Evaluating Partnering Organizational Awareness Organizational Awareness

Problem Solving Planning and Evaluating Partnering Partnering 

Project Management Problem Solving Planning and Evaluating Planning and Evaluating 

Reading Project Management Problem Solving Problem Solving

Reasoning Reading Project Management Project Management 

Resilience Reasoning Reading Reading 

Self-Management Resilience Reasoning Reasoning

Stress Tolerance Self-Management Resilience Resilience

Teaching Others Stress Tolerance Self-Management Self-Management 

Teamwork Teaching Others Strategic Thinking Strategic Thinking

Technical Competence Teamwork Stress Tolerance Stress Tolerance

Vision Technical Competence Teaching Others Teaching Others

Writing Vision Teamwork Teamwork

Writing Technical Competence Technical Competence

Vision Vision

Writing Writing
Appendix IV: OPM Grants Management 

Competency Model

Page 54 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Technical Competencies

Grade 12 Grade 13 Grade 14 Grade 15

Compliance Compliance Compliance Compliance

Financial Analysis Financial Analysis Financial Analysis Financial Analysis

Financial Assistance 

Mechanisms

Financial Assistance 

Mechanisms

Financial Assistance 

Mechanisms

Financial Assistance 

Mechanisms

Grants Management Grants Management Grants Management Grants Management

Grants Management Laws, 

Regulations & Guidelines

Grants Management Laws, 

Regulations & Guidelines

Grants Management Laws, 

Regulations & Guidelines

Grants Management Laws, 

Regulations & Guidelines

Source: OPM.
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgements

Page 55 GAO-13-591 Training the Federal Grant Workforce

Stanley J. Czerwinski, Director, (202) 512-6806 or czerwinskis@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Peter Del Toro, Assistant 

Director; Erin Saunders Rath; and Shelby Kain made key contributions to 

all aspects of the report. Vida Awumey, Thomas Beall, Penny Berrier, Jill 

Center, Gus J. Crosetto, Beryl H. Davis, R. Eli DeVan, Debra A. Draper, 

Alexandra Edwards, Robert Gebhart, George Guttman, Melissa King, 

Belva M. Martin, Kimberly McGatlin, Rebecca Rose, Michelle B. 

Rosenberg, and Stuart Kauffman also provided assistance. In addition, 

Amy Bowser provided legal support and Donna Miller developed the 

report’s graphics.

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgements 

GAO contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(450965)
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