Do you know the answers to the key questions that face education administrators right now? Questions like:

1. What is the latest information on obligation and liquidation dates for ESSER and GEER funding?
2. How do districts/colleges prepare for a world without ESSER, GEER, and HEERF funds – and the looming funding cliff?
3. Must states/locals/colleges have internal risk assessments in place?
4. Why are more states moving to imposing special conditions on sub recipients?
5. How do pass-throughs resolve subrecipient noncompliance with Davis-Bacon or other procurement findings?

Further complicating how your institution operates, federal courts in the coming months could make decisions that will impact Title IX and student loan forgiveness. These changes will join a recent IDEA decision to drive change at educational institutions. And after a slow start to the year, this Congress is turning up the legislative heat with proposals on parents’ rights at the school site level, new reporting on budgets and spending, teacher pay, and modifications to Title IX. While the chances of these proposals passing the Senate and winning the President’s approval are slim, they will in turn raise the temperature of debates in Congress and at the State and local level ahead of a tumultuous election season. And where the President tries to make policy moves on his own, lawmakers have threatened to rescind regulations and policies through use of the Congressional Review Act.

Schools and colleges could see the impact of these actions in the fall of 2024, just as the last round of stimulus funds are expiring, leading to a crunch of budgeting, planning, and implementation. The Bruman Group’s Spring Virtual Forum is here to help you plan for the potential hurdles and roadblocks.

The forum will commence on May 1^st with two optional EDGAR pre-sessions. One will focus on the basic requirements of EDGAR, and the other will focus on more advanced EDGAR concepts, including revisions to Parts 75 and 76 and the General Education Provisions Act. All Pre-Session attendees will receive a copy of the 5th Edition of the Administrator’s Handbook on EDGAR. Registration must be received no later than April 14th in order to receive your book on time. There will be ample time during these two sessions to have all your questions on EDGAR and the Uniform Guidance answered.

The forum itself will then run four hours a day (Noon to 4 PM EST) from May 2^nd to May 4^th, with both general and breakout sessions catered to the most pressing matters in federal grants management. We’ll start on May 2 with a discussion of key developments on Capitol Hill and at the U.S. Education Department. The legislative session will be followed by remarks from officials at FEMA on matters relating to UGG compliance with federal procurement, including the permissibility of piggybacking, reliance on the emergency exception to competition, and cooperative purchasing programs. Officials from the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Education Department will then address their priorities, and recent audits and investigations. The first day ends with a focus on the specific responsibilities that the U.S. Education Department has assigned to State Education Agencies (i.e., grantee) and to LEAs and IHEs (i.e., subgrantee) on audit resolution.

Day 2 will begin with a panel of state, local, and postsecondary representatives on ESSER/GEER/HEERF monitoring. We will then offer a choice of breakout sessions on ESSER allowability, indirect costs, supplement not supplant and maintenance of effort, and Perkins CTE monitoring and updates (with representatives from OCTAE).

Day 3 will shift back to compliance. We’ll start with a discussion of developing an internal risk assessment for your organization, and then focus on specific areas of EDGAR and the UGG which warrant special attention. We will then discuss which sections of EDGAR and the UGG require written policies and procedures, and conclude with a discussion of recent audit findings and how to prevent them.

We understand that you have choices as to conferences and professional development. We submit that our forums are the most informative and specifically tailored to the questions and issues you care most about – and offer additional Q&A at the end of each day. We urge you to register as soon as possible to reserve your spot as our forums historically sell out within a few weeks. Although the Spring Forum is virtual, we must limit capacity to allow us to adequately respond to your questions. So please register early to guarantee a spot.