Review of Sole Incumbent Grantees' Compliance With Head Start Program Requirements

Head Start - the largest Federal investment in early childhood education - is a nation-wide grant program to promote school readiness in children from low-income families. The Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 required the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to begin awarding 5-year grants for Head Start and to require grantees that ACF determines are not providing a high-quality and comprehensive Head Start program to "recompete" - i.e., to participate in open competition for funding renewal. ACF implemented a system to assess a subset of grantees each year and determine which grantees will be required to recompete. Prior OIG work on the Head Start Grant recompetition process found that many of the grantees required to recompete were the sole applicants for their respective grants, and thus faced no competition. As a result, ACF either reselected the incumbent grantee or appointed a temporary grantee to avoid a disruption of Head Start services. We will review select sole applicant grantees that ACF reselected after the recompetition process. We will determine whether these grantees complied with Head Start's health, safety, and financial management requirements.

Announced or Revised	Agency	Title	Component	Report Number(s)	Expected Issue Date (FY)
Completed	Administration for Children and Families	Review of Sole Incumbent Grantees' Compliance With Head Start Program Requirements	Office of Audit Services	A-01-18-02502; A-01-18-02503; W-00-18-20017	2020