Last week the GAO released a report (GAO-09–590R) on the status of Grants.gov, in response to enquiries from Congressmen Voinovich, Towns, Lynch, and Davis. The report echoes many of the concerns expressed by OMB several weeks ago but GAO goes a few steps forward with regard to concerns about confusing grant deadlines, with these recommendations (as stated by FCW):

• To the extent permissible by law, applications received at any point on the stated grant opportunity closing date should be considered timely.
• Agencies must notify an applicant when an application submission has been received and if the application has been deemed late. An applicant that submits electronically (including by e‑mail or fax) should receive automatic confirmation with a date and time stamp.
• Applicants whose applications have been deemed late should be given an opportunity to provide supporting documentation to demonstrate that they attempted to submit an application on time (such as e‑mail confirmations, electronic time stamps, U.S. Postal Service or commercial postmarks, etc.)

Later this week, I hope to post some thoughts about where Grants.gov should go in the future, as sticking with the current system and situation is untenable.