Following the Money: Interning at the Federal Audit Clearinghouse

By Evan Crum, Justice and Legal Thought

I was responsible for reaching out to the financial director for over 20 agencies in order to fill out interagency agreements, which essentially allow for these agencies to use our data collection services for the coming fiscal year.

The past few months I interned at the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, which is a branch under the department of the Office of Budget and Management. Even though this is a part of OMB, since it is a data collection branch we are located in the Census Bureau building, which is why you will see pictures of it on my poster. The purpose of the Federal Audit Clearinghouse is to collect single audit data, which is an examination of expenses from non-profit institutions receiving over 750,000 federal dollars. The federal government gives out hundreds of millions of dollars of federal aid to institutions like the University of Maryland, and in order to renew that funding, these institutions must submit a single audit report for it to be reviewed. As I mentioned before, my branch is a data collection agency, but not as much of a data analysis agency. We are responsible for collecting this single audit data before sending it to be reviewed by the department of the federal government that allocated the resources. These departments include the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and over a dozen more. These relationships that we form with these agencies is where I primarily worked on. I was responsible for reaching out to the financial director for over 20 agencies in order to fill out interagency agreements, which essentially allow for these agencies to use our data collection services for the coming fiscal year. While these agreements are required by law to be made, the process is not that simple, as the document must be reviewed by lawyers from both departments, which is a process that can take months.