National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard

Arlington, Virginia 22230
March 22, 2011
Office of Budget, flna nee
and Award Management
Honorable Darrellissa
Chairman
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-6143
Honorable Jim Jordan
Chairman
Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus
Oversight and Government Spending
Honorable Todd R. Platts
Chairman
Subcommittee on Government Organization,
Efficiency and Financial Management
vkonorable James Lankford
Chairman
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement
Reform
Dear Representatives Issa, Platts, Jordan and Lankford:
Enclosed please find the response of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to your letter dated March
8, 2011 requesting information relating to the electronic systems In use at NSF to support business and
accounting functions; grants and loans management; contracts management; and reporting to .
government-wide systems such as USASpending.gov and Recovery.gov.
Specifically, this correspondence includes:
(1) NSF's responses to each of your Individual requests,
(2) an attach ment responding to request #2, and
(3) an attachment responding to request #20.
If you have any questions relating to this response, please d.o not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,tj

A. Rubenstein
O - Financial Officer
Office of Budget, Finance and Award Administration
ee; Honorable Elijah Cummings, Ranking Member
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
NSF Applications in the Grant Lifecycle
The National Science Foundation Responses to the House Committee on
Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding
Federal Financial Management Systems Modernization
1. Identify and briefly describe each of your agency's business and accounting systems. If
separate divisions, bureaus, or offices of your agency use separate systems, identify which
divisions, bureaus, or offices use each system.
NSF's business systems include FastLane, the eJacket system, and the Awards System.
They are described more fully in response to Request No.7.
NSF's accounting systems is known as the Financial Accounting System (FAS). Program
and financial management staff use FAS ta monitor, control, and execute the
management and financial accountability of NSF awards. This includes activities such as
making funding allocations, processing financial transactions, and conducting accounts
maintenance.
FAS has supported core financial processes for the Foundation for over 20 years, with
only one major upgrade during that time. As a result, this legacy financial management
system is aging and requires ever increasing time, effort, and funding to operate,
maintain, and remain in compliance with the new federal financial management
requirements. NSF is planning for a modernization, iTRAK (see NSF's response to Request
No. 5 for more information), that will support improved business processes for core
financial functions, enable staff to conduct in-depth financial analysis, eliminate manual
workarounds, and provide decision makers with data to make informed business
decisions.
FAS is extensively integrated with NSF's grants management systems and travel
applications.
2. Explain how the business and accounting systems identified in response to Request No.1
interact with one another.
The answer to this Request is contained in the attached document entitled,
NSF_Response to #2 _Operational Model.pptx.
3. For each system identified in response to Request No.1, state whether information found in
that system is regularly or periodically submitted to any of the government-wide accounting
systems maintained by the Department of the Treasury, e.g., GFRS, FACTS I, FACTS II, IFCS,
etc., and explain how and at what intervals those submissions occur, including descriptions of
both manual and automated processes.
NSF's Division of Financial Management (DFM) is responsible for reporting financial data
generated in the FAS periodically to the Department of the Treasury. NSF staff manually
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formots, validates, and reconciles system data, often to a significant degree, to meet the
following reporting requirements:
Monthly
Report FBwT (Fund Balance with Treosury) activity to Treasury monthly utilizing
the Agency Transaction Module of the Governmentwide Accounting and
Reporting Modernization System. The FBwT activity requires significant manual
data manipulation and reconciliation before it can be entered into the GWA
System.
Quarterly
Upload budgetary account balance and attribute data into FACTS II.
o Manually reconcile, format, and submit proprietary account balance, attribute,
and trading partner data to Treasury for input into the Intragovernmental
Reporting and Analysis System. Again, significant manual data manipulation
and reconciliation is required before the data is submitted.
Manually input Intra governmental account balance data for transactions with
OPM and DOL into IFCS.
Manually reconcile and enter receivable and debt collection activity data into
the TROR.
Annually (Fiscal year-end)
Manually input audited financial statements, notes, and trading partner data, by
line item, into GFRS for inclusion in the consolidated Financial Report of the
United States Government.
Manually reconcile, format, and submit proprietary account balance, attribute,
and trading partner data to Treasury utilizing FACTS I. Again, significant manual
data manipulation and reconciliation is required before the data is uploaded.
4. For each system identified in response to Request No.1, state whether information found in
that system is regularly or periodically submitted to the Office of Management and Budget's
("OMB") MAX Information System, and explain how and at what intervals those submissions
occur, including descriptions of both automated and manual processes.
Among the systems identified in the response to Request No.1, NSF submits information
found in the FAS and eJacket to OMB MAX Information System on an annual basis.
Specifically, this information is input into the Character Classification (Schedule C) and
Object Classification (Schedule 0) schedules. The systems are queried for the data, which
is manually input into the MAX Information System.
NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal
Financial Management Systems Modernization
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5. For each system identified in response to Request No.1, describe recent, current, and planned
migration or modernization projects.
NSF is undertaking a modernization project entitled iTRAK. iTRAK is a Foundation-wide
strategic initiative to transition NSF from its aging financial and solution to a modern,
streamlined financial management solution. iTRAK will facilitate standardization and
increase automation of NSF financial transactions, business processes, and operating
procedures. iTRAK will also provide NSF managers with financial and business analysis
capabilities to support informed decision-making in administering and managing NSF
grants. These improvements are critical to NSF's continuous ability to facilitate
stewardship of resources, support calls for increased transparency of financial data
related to the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and comply with Federal
regulations and standards, which cannot be fully supported by NSF's current financial
management environment.
6. In addition to your agency's submissions to government-wide accounting systems maintained
by the Department of the Treasury and OMB, as described in response to Requests Nos. 3 and
4, does your agency publish any of the same information online for public viewing? If so,
describe how and in what format that information is published.
NSF's financial statements are available on its website included in the FY 2010 Agency
Financial Report, Chapter II: Financial Statements
http://www.ns&qov/pubs/2011/ns{11003/toc.jsp.
In addition, NSF publishes statistical data on award obligations annually in the Budget
Internet Information System, available to the public at http://dellweb.bfa.ns&qov/. Data
are extracted from the FAS and Awards System and published in tables by state, and
awardee institution and may be filtered by type of institution and/or NSF organization.
7. Identify and briefly describe each system that your agency uses to manage grants, direct
loans, and lor loan guarantees. If separate divisions, bureaus, or offices of your agency use
separate systems, identify which division, bureaus, or offices use each system.
NSF's grants and cooperative agreement awards are managed through FastLane, the
eJacket system, and the Awards System.
FastLane is used by NSF grant applicants and grantees to submit proposals, submit
project reports, and manage other post-award activities, including requesting
payments.
eJacket provides NSF's administrative and program staff with access to the
information provided by applicants and grantees via FastLane. eJacket also provides
access to the official electronic award documents and records and workflow
automation capabilities to support the programmatic management of awards,
including project report approval.
NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal
Financial Management Systems Modernization
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The Awards System is used by NSF's grants and agreement officers to issue new
awards, manage the terms and conditions associated with an award, compose and
issue award letters, and administer the awards.
8. For each system identified in response to Request No.7, explain how it interacts with any
business or accounting system identified in response to Request No.1.
The answer to this Request is contained in the attached document entitled,
NSF_Response to #2 _Operational Model.pptx. This is also explained in the FY 2010
Agency Financial Report, Chapter I: Management's Discussion and Analysis, page 20
http://www.nstgov/oubs/2011/ns(11003/toc.jsp.
9. For each system identified in response to Request No.7, state whether found in
that system is regularly or periodically submitted to the Catalogue of Federal Domestic
Assistance (CFDA), and describe how and at what intervals those submissions occur, including
descriptions of both automated and manual processes.
NSF submits information found in the FAS and eJacket annually to the CFDA. This data is
entered manually in the CFDA database.
10. For each system identified in response to Request No.7, state whether information found in
that system is regularly or periodically submitted to any of the government-wide grants
management and reporting systems, e.g., FAADS, FAADS PLUS, etc., and describe how and at
what intervals those submissions, occur, including descriptions of both automated and
manual processes.
NSF extracts data from the Awards System and FAS to report to FAADS on a monthly
basis and FAADS PLUS on a quarterly basis. This is an automatic process which pulls the
necessary data from the systems and formats them into the required data formats.
11. For each system identified in response to Request No.7, describe recent, current, and planned
migration or modernization projects.
NSF's Research.gov initiative will modernize FastLane services to the applicant and
grantee community. Research.gov also gives the general public, the science, engineering,
research, and education community, and Congressional staff easy access to key
information" on the results being achieved with federally-funded research.
12. In addition to your agency's submissions to government-wide grants management and
reporting systems, described in response to Requests Nos. 9 and 10, does your agency publish
any ofthe same information online for public viewing? If so, describe how and in what format
that information is published.
NSF also publishes this information in Research. gov Research Spending and Results
(RS&R). RS&R is an online, user-friendly platform to access and search detailed
information about federally funded science and engineering research and education,
giving the general public, the scientific community and Congress visibility into the results
NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal
Financial Management Systems Modernization
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achieved with federally-funded research. Research awards are easily searchable by
awardee, award amount and date, CFDA number, state and congressional district
(where award was made and the work is being performed), and key word such as a field
of science. Information can be reviewed online or exported to various file formats. RS&R
also provides access to the outcomes of NSF-funded awards, including the publications
and conference proceedings resulting from NSF awards and the Public Outcomes Report
for the General Public (PaR). NSF-funded researchers submit the paR at the end of the
project period describing the project outcomes or findings that address the intellectual
merit and broader impacts of the work as defined in the NSF merit review criteria. In
addition, see response to question 6.
13. Identify and briefly describe each system that your agency uses to manage contracts. If
separate divisions, bureaus, or offices of your agency use separate systems, identify which
divisions, bureaus, or offices use each system.
The Automated Acquisition Management System (AAMS) is the automated acquisition
tool used by the Division of Acquisition and Cooperative Support (DACS) Contracts
Branch (CB) to generate procurement documents. It is a Commercial Off-the-Shelf
(COTS) web-based application designed to store and manage acquisition data for the
Federal Government.
14. For each system identified in response to Request No. 13, explain how it interacts with any
business or accounting system identified in response to Request No. 1.
AAMS is not integrated into any of the systems identified in the response to Request
No.1. Depending on the source of funds:
.G. Commitment is entered into eJacket which routes it to the Awards System queue.
The information in the commitment is printed out and manually entered into AAMS.
At the time of award in AAMS, the action is approved in the Awards System thereby
transmitting an obligation to FAS.
b. Commitment is entered into FAS and a document containing the commitment
information is' used to manually enter commitment information into AAMS. At the
time of award in AAMS, the obligation is manually entered into FAS.
15. For each system identified in respol1se to Request No. 13, state whether information found in
that system is regularly or periodically submitted to any of the government-wide contract
management and reporting systems, e.g., FPDS, FPDS-NG, FAPIIS, etc., and describe how and
at what intervals those submissions occur, including descriptions of both automated and
manual processes.
NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal
Financial Management Systems Modernization
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AAMS is connected to the FPDS-NG system and populates FPDS-NG entries based on
entries in the Data Values tab of the AAMS action. Prior to an action being awarded, the
Contract Specialist/Contracting Officer goes into FPDS-NG through AAMS and runs the
FPDS-NG error checks and validates the entries prior to award. At this point the FPDS-
NG Report is in a Draft state. When the Contracting Officer clicks the "award" icon in
AAMS the action is awarded in AAMS making the FPDS-NG report final in FPDS-NG. The
transfer of the final data between AAMS and FPDS-NG is real-time. FDPS-NG interfaces
with USAspending.gov to upload the Federal spending information.
16. For each system identified in response to Request No. 13, describe recent, current, and
planned migration or modernization projects.
The NSF iTRAK initiative includes integrating management of acquisition into our
financial and property management systems. Current acquisition processes have been
documented and the To-Be processes and requirements are currently in development.
Full implementation of Acquisition's integration into the new system is forecast for
FY2017. This integration will modernize acquisition processes through elimination of
double entry into systems and other manual steps which will reduce the possibility of
error and limit the use of paper to transmit information.
17. In addition to your agency's submission to government-wide contract management and
reporting systems, described in response to Request No. 15, does your agency publish any of
the same information online for public viewing? If so, describe how and in what format that
information is published.
Information contained in FPDS-NG concerning NSF actions is available to the public at
USAspending.com. Per instructions contained in Attachment 1 of the OMB
Memorandum, Service Contract Inventories, November 5, 2011, the NSF FY 2010 Service
Contract Inventory was published on January 31, 2011. This document is available on
the NSF website at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsfll026/nsfll026.pdf. It consists
of information on service contracts that hove the largest percentage of obligation during
FY 2010 and are considered "special interest functions" as described in OMB guidance
(e.g. Professional Management Services and Information Technology Support Services).
The guidance in the OMB memorandum showed how to develop the documentation
through using the FPDS-NG Ad-Hoc Reporting tool.
18. Briefly describe your agency's efforts to comply with OMB's memorandum on the Open
Government Directive - Federal Spending Transparency, dated April 6, 2010. In particular,
describe whether and how your agency has begun to collect and report sub-award data, as
required by the memorandum, and describe how your agency's reports on OMB's data quality
metrics, as required by the memorandum, are generated.
NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal
Financial Management Systems Modernization
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NSF collects subaward data for grants through the Federal Funding Accountobility and
Transparency Act Suboward Reporting System (FSRS.gov). Subaward data is reported
publicly on USAspending.gov. All awards made on or after 10/1/2010 include a term
and condition requiring the prime grantee to report subaward and executive
compensation data to FSRS.gov. These reports are then automatically populated in
USAspending.gov. To assess data quality, NSF compares its FAADSPlus submission each
month to control totals generated from the accounting and grants management
systems.
For contracts, NSF issued a controct policy bulletin concerning the requirements included
in the April 6, 2010, memorandum to NSF acquisition personnel. The bulletin explained
requirements of FAR 4.14, Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontracts
and the clause FAR 52.204-10, Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier
Subcontract Awards (JuI2010). In the bulletin, Contracting Officers were instructed to (1)
include the FAR 52.204-10 clause in solicitations and contracts in accordance with FAR
4.1403 and (2) ensure reviews of contractor reports are performed on a quarterly basis
to ensure the information is consistent with contract information. The contract file shall
document the review conducted including any findings.
19. If your agency interacts directly with USASpending.gov, in addition to submitting information
to the systems that feed USASpending.gov, describe the nature, frequency, and purposes of
that interaction.
Since 2008, we have contacted USAspending.gov fewer than 10 times in order to clarify
technical aspects of the system and request that they replace previously submitted data
with a new record.
20. Describe the data quality controls and procedures that your agency has implemented for
information that is submitted to USASpending.gov, including information submitted directly
and information submitted to one ofthe systems that feed USASpending.gov.
This information is provided in the attached "Framework for the Quality of Federal
Spending Information" dated May 14, 2010, pages 29-33. NSF has implemented
additional data quality controls and procedures for the contractual information that is
input into FPDS-NG.
a. All data elements have to pass the FPDS-NG edits before the corresponding awards
can be issued by NSF's contract writing system, the Automated Acquisition
Management System (AAMS). The DACS CB Chief also requires multi-tiered review of
each action to prevent file errors including FPDS-NG errors.
b. In FY 2010, NSF began developing the FPDS-NG Anomaly Reports recommended by
GSA and described in the FPDS-NG Data Quality page of the MAX Collaboration Tool.
NSF runs reports in an effort to identify possible errors.
c. The contract writing system used at NSF, AAMS, contains a useful FPDS-NG reporting
tool that is used to assist DACS CB in improving FPDS-NG data accuracy.
NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight- & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal
Financial Management Systems Modernization
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21. State whether all of your agency's current grants, contracts, and loans are accurately reflected
on USASpending.gov, and, if not, estimate the percentage of current grants, contracts, and
loans that are not accurately reflected, using both the number of transactions and dollar
figures.
NSF is aware of 4 grants totaling $825,000 made in FY 2011 that are not currently
available on USAspending.gov because the grantees' CCR registrations had expired or
their DUNS number could not be validated by USAspending.gov. This amounts to 0.001%
of the $859 million reported to date in FY 2011.
100% of reportable contract actions awarded during FY 2010 for NSF were entered into
FPDS-NG as fully and accurately as possible. Consequently, the number of transactions is
100% accurate. Veri/ication and validation (V& V) of NSF contractual data entered into
FPDS-NG in FY 2010 revealed a 96% overall accuracy rate/or the OMB designated key
data elements. Among these key data elements, the V& V revealed a 98% accuracy rate
pertaining to the Action Obligations data element; a 93% accuracy rate pertaining to the
Base and Exercised Options Value data element; and a 90% accuracy rate pertaining to
the Base and All Options Value data element.
22. State whether your agency incurs any reporting burdens or costs as a result of its obligations
under the Federal Financial Assistance Transparency Act ("FFATA") that it does not incur as a
result of other reporting obligations, and estimate those burdens and costs in worker-hours
and dollars.
NSF does not currently incur any burdens or costs as a result of obligations under FFA TA
that it does not incur as a result of other reporting obligations.
23. Identify the individual(s) who serve(s) as Senior Accountable Official(s) ("SAO") over federal
spending data quality for your agency, as defined by OMB.
Jose L. Munoz, Ph.D, Chief Technology Officer, National Science Foundation.
NSF's Responses to the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform's Request for Information Regarding Federal
Financial Management Systems Modernization