Case Studies

Client’s Problem: Our federal civilian client is one of the leading federal agencies to provide grant funding for research and development and education. It faced a backlog of Single Audit Act and OIG audits in need of resolution and faced staff limitations responsible for an annual budget of $10 billion. The organization required additional support to maintain compliance with laws and regulations and to maintain an unmodified financial statement audit opinion. The client had not been able to update its policies and procedures for audit follow-up in over a decade, and needed additional support conducting on-site monitoring of recipients to augment its limited staff.

BWG’s Approach: BWG provided our client with PMO support to streamline operations and project management activities, diversify engagement efforts with grantees in pre- and post-award services and create efficiencies through business process improvements that became lasting through policy and procedure updates and changes. BWG’s nationally recognized grants leaders developed instructions on required elements of audit follow-up reflecting new and evolving requirements, improved recipient instructions resulting in quicker and higher-quality responses, and provided support conducting pre-award reviews to alleviate client staff shortages. We utilized our proprietary “Well-Defined Business Processes, Governance and Controls” methodology to produce a wholesale revision of the audit follow-up policies and procedures. The pre-award and on-site reviews included budget, financial capability, and accounting system assessments.

Solution and Benefits: BWG helped our client eliminate its audit follow-up backlog and keep its pipeline current. Our client received: an overhaul of its audit follow up operations to improve all elements of this post-award process; enhanced communications, knowledge sharing and on-site visits that led to higher grantee issue resolution; standardization of business processes that improved grantee reporting; and updated policies and procedures to create enduring future impacts. BWG executed knowledge transfer to client’s staff, many of whom were new to their roles, through differentiated change management practices (documenting and sharing our approach in client staff meetings, strategic communications, practical guidance and feedback).

BWG produced a revised policy and procedures guide that reflects the improvements introduced in the audit follow up process, the required elements negotiated with the OIG, and compliance with 2CFR200, OMB Circular A-123, and the GAO internal control standards.

BWG helped the client meet its monitoring goals and produced impactful reports helping recipients remain compliant.