By Nan Futrell, BJC Staff Counsel
In August, the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released new guidance advising federal agencies on continuing efforts to implement President Barack Obama’s Executive Order 13559, a 2010 directive that clarified some of the appropriate contours of partnerships between the federal government and faith-based social service providers.
Among other things, the Executive Order provided that religious organizations must not engage in “explicitly religious” activity in the course of providing federally funded services, set forth standards aimed at promoting transparency and accountability among both agencies and service providers, and called for greater protection for beneficiaries with objections to service providers’ religious affiliations.
The recent OMB memo follows an interagency Working Group Report, published in April 2012, proposing practical guidance and model regulations for agencies as they work to implement these reforms. OMB has instructed relevant agency heads to amend and adopt regulations and guidance consistent with the Executive Order and the Working Group Report recommendations. OMB, working in conjunction with the Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, will reconvene the Working Group to develop a plan for uniform, consistent implementation of the Executive Order.
Pursuant to this plan, as required by OMB, agency heads will then submit “agency-specific plans for amending, to the extent permitted by law, all existing policies, guidance documents, and regulations of their respective agencies that have implications for faith-based and other neighborhood organizations and that require amending to ensure that they are consistent with the fundamental principles set forth in the [Executive Order].”
The OMB guidance is the next step in the regulatory process to implement President Obama’s Executive Order regarding faith-based initiatives.
From the September 2013 Report from the Capital. Click here for the next article.
