TAGGS Specific Questions

The Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) is a publically accessible website used to track grants awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

TAGGS is the central repository of all grant award data that originates from the HHS grant-making operating divisions (OPDIVs) and staff divisions (STAFFDIVs). The data in TAGGS permits in-depth analysis and reporting of grant program information involving research, demonstrations, projects, and other services. It supports the Federal Government’s spending transparency initiatives

TAGGS is used by HHS, Congressional offices, the White House, other federal agencies, grant applicants and recipients, researchers, and the general public for a variety of informational purposes. Commonly searched TAGGS fields include Congressional district, assistance listing, recipient (grantee) name, recipient location (state, city, zip), awarding OPDIV, award amounts (or sum of transactions), and fiscal year.

You can save all searches and reports found in TAGGS to a Microsoft Excel (XLS) file, to a Microsoft Word (RTF) file, to an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file, or to a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file. Each of these files can be printed through their associated applications. For example, if you have saved a report as a Microsoft Excel file, you can open the file with Excel and print it.

TAGGS contains four powerful search tools. The Award Search, Recipient Search, and Advanced Search provide tabular results, and the Site Search is used for pinpointing a specific award program or recipient based on a keyword. These tools are found under the SEARCH menu item at the top of the page.

The TAGGS Award Search and the Recipient Search allow limited criteria. The Advanced Search enables multiple selections to be combined to create a very refined search for grants data (keyword, agency, type, year, state, and many more). All searches enable results to be downloaded in Excel, PDF, RTF and CSV formats.

TAGGS searches can be saved by clicking the Generate Shareable URL icon at the top right of the results table. A dialog window will display containing a URL. Capture the URL to save the search criteria for future reports.

Yes. Select as many Fiscal Years as you would like.

You can search the foreign awards under Location Search and then click the Search Foreign Award tab.

The Assistance Listing Number (ALN) is a 5-digit number that identifies Federal programs, projects, and services that benefit the American public. The format is XX.XXX, where the first two digits represent the funding agency, and the second three digits represent the program.

Allocation of Assistance Listing funding is by fiscal year(s) and therefore selection (data) is unavailable in years where funds are not provided for that program.

This is the date that the Grants Management Officer signed the award notice or an action was taken.

This is the formal start date of a DHHS grant program’s funding availability.

A recipient is an organization or individual who is awarded a grant.

TAGGS complies with Section 508 accessibility standards. TAGGS is tested monthly to ensure compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility standards.

Data Quality Questions

TAGGS data is refreshed daily. OPDIVs and STAFFDIVs provide updated data to TAGGS one or more times per week.

Other Government sites refresh their data at different intervals. For example, TAGGS data is refreshed daily, while downstream submissions to USASpending occur only twice per month.

Assistance Listing Numbers (ALN) are only visible during the fiscal year in which they are funded. The list of ALN numbers changes between OPDIVs and STAFFDIVs as well.

Some Assistance Listing Numbers are retired and recycled over time. Therefore, if the user performs multiple searches over multiple years, it is possible to have the same ALN appear for different awards.

Some Place of Performance data elements may not have been collected, or required, at the time of application submission and subsequent award.

General Questions

USAspending is a publicly accessible, searchable website mandated by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency ACT (FFATA) and managed by the U.S. Treasury. It provides the American public with access to information on how their tax dollars are spent.

TAGGS data is one of the six data sources for USASpending. TAGGS is used to submit HHS data to USAspending.gov.

The federal government uses a 12 month accounting period that begins on October 1 and ends on September 30 of the following calendar year. For example, fiscal year 2015 (or FY2015) began October 1, 2014 and ended September 30, 2015.

An HHS Operating Division (OPDIV) is an agency that provides funding through grant awards, loans, health insurance, and services in support of public health and human service initiatives. Within HHS, there are 11 OPDIV organizations including the Staff Divisions (STAFFDIV) under the Office of the Secretary. Each OPDIV and STAFFDIV uniquely serves a public support mission that varies among a range of programs in medical research, social, public health, and food and drug safety. For complete OPDIV information, visit the HHS website at www.HHS.gov.