Grants.gov to be updated in 90–120 days

Jason Miller at Federal News Radio posted an update to our story last week about OMB’s concerns over Grants.gov’s ability to handle the expected surge in grant applications:

“The Department of Health and Human Services expects to upgrade the Grants.gov site in the next 90-to-120 days, well into the surge in applications expected from the Recovery act.
“Sheila Conley, HHS’s deputy assistant secretary for finance and acting deputy assistant secretary for grants, says she and other senior officials throughout government are concerned about the time it will take to improve the centralized federal Web site to find and apply for grants.”

There’s also a recognition that some thinking needs to go into how Grants.gov develops over the next several months:

’ ”We need to begin our effort to plan out the next generation of Grants.gov,” she says. “We have to take advantage of the acceptance and successes of Grants.gov. We will look across an interagency group to build off well accepted concept and make that work. It will be not long after we stabilize the current environment.“ ‘

Certainly a step in the right direction.