On December 19, 2014, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and 28 federal agencies published in the Federal Register a consolidated interim final rule to implement OMB’s December 2013 final guidance on administrative requirements, cost principles and audit requirements for federal grants and cooperative agreements.

The December 26, 2013 Uniform Guidance—which also became known as the “OmniCircular” or “SuperCircular”—was the culmination of a lengthy process begun by the Council on Financial Assistance Reform (COFAR), an interagency group created in 2011 and charged with assisting OMB in cutting government red tape and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in connection with grants and cooperative agreements. The Uniform Guidance consolidated instruction previously found in eight separate OMB Circulars that applied primarily to “non-Federal entities”—defined by OMB to include non-profit organizations, institutes of higher education (IHEs), state and local governments, and Indian tribes.