6. Other Administrative Requirements/Options

Record-Keeping and Record Retention

Grantee financial records, supporting documents, statistical records, and all other records pertaining to the grant award must be retained for a period of at least three years from the date of submission of the annual financial report (45 CFR 92.42, or 45 CFR 98.90). Exceptions to this are:

• If any litigation, claim, financial management review, or audit is started before the expiration of the three-year period, the records must be retained until all litigation, claims, or audit findings involving the records have been resolved and final action taken.
• Records for real property and equipment acquired with Federal grant funds must be retained for three years beyond the date of final disposition (i.e., the date the equipment or property was sold or otherwise disposed).

Federal awarding agencies have the right of timely and unrestricted access to any of the grantee's books, documents, papers, or other records that are pertinent to the grant award in order to make audits, reviews, examinations, excerpts, transcripts, and/or copies of such documents. This right of access exists as long as the records are retained.

For purposes of Tribal TANF programs, the three-year record-keeping requirement in 45 CFR 92.42 has been interpreted in TANF-ACF-PI-2003-1, dated January 28, 2003 regarding Retention of TANF Records - Starting Date of Retention Period (available online at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/dts/guidance/TANFGuide.pdf).

This program instruction clarifies the general rule for determining the start date of the three-year record retention period provided under 45 CFR 92.42(c)(1) as it pertains to the State, Territorial, and Tribal Federal TANF awards and MOE expenditures. For Federal TANF awards, the record retention period starts on the day the grantee submits its final expenditure report showing that all the funds awarded in the particular Federal fiscal year (FFY) have been expended. For each fiscal year, the three-year record retention period begins in the first quarter of the new fiscal year that immediately follows the 4th quarter TANF/Territorial Financial Report (ACF-196) or the 4th quarter Tribal TANF Financial Report (SF-269A and/or ACF-196TR) for the current fiscal year showing the final expenditure for the particular grant year. If any litigation, claim, negotiation, audit, or other action starts before the expiration of the three-year record retention period, then the retention period extends up to expiration of the three-year retention period, as illustrated in the PI, or upon resolution of all issues arising from the action, whichever is later.

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