The bill amends section 2009 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to force the Department of Homeland Security to deliver detailed reporting on the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP). It requires an advance report before each set of grants and a comprehensive annual report that breaks down applications, awards, retained state amounts, recipient identities and addresses, and how funds were spent.
This is a narrow, operational transparency bill: it gives Congress granular visibility into who applies for and receives NSGP funds, how much states withhold for administration, and how recipients spend awards. That level of detail will aid oversight and public accountability but also creates potential privacy and security risks for vulnerable nonprofits and adds data-collection burdens for states, FEMA, and small organizations receiving grants.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires DHS to submit a pre‑grant report to specific congressional committees before making any set of NSGP awards, and an annual report after the fiscal year ends. Reports must include counts of applications and awards by state and high‑risk urban area, recipient‑level identification and amounts, and information on retained administrative funds and recipient expenditures.
Who It Affects
Federally eligible nonprofit applicants and recipients under the NSGP, state administrative agencies that route NSGP applications to FEMA, the DHS/FEMA NSGP program office responsible for compiling data, and the House and Senate homeland security oversight committees.
Why It Matters
The bill establishes a precedent for recipient‑level disclosure in a security‑focused grant program, enabling detailed congressional oversight and third‑party scrutiny. It also forces DHS and states to build or expand reporting systems and forces nonprofits to document expenditures—raising tradeoffs between transparency, operational burden, and safety.
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What This Bill Actually Does
HB7382 inserts new reporting duties into the existing statutory authority for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (section 2009 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002). At its core the bill creates two distinct reporting moments: an advance notice tied to each set of awards and a comprehensive, post‑fiscal‑year accounting.
The advance notice must give committees early visibility into who applied, how many applicants a state forwarded to DHS, the number and dollar value of awards by state and by any designated high‑risk urban area, and a recipient‑level roster that identifies each organization, its address, whether it sits in a high‑risk urban area, and the award amount.
The annual report takes a broader look back. For each state it requires DHS to report the count of nonprofit applications, the number of applications the state forwarded to the Administrator, and the number and total dollar value of awards made through that state.
The bill also requires DHS to disclose amounts that states retained under the program’s existing retention provision and to show, at the recipient level, how award dollars not retained by states were spent. Aggregated tallies for awards within high‑risk urban areas are also required.The amendment also directs DHS to account for the internal operations of the NSGP program office: staffing levels, resource allocation, and the office’s efforts to carry out specified program duties.
Practically speaking, the bill shifts the NSGP from a primarily state‑administered grant with limited statutory reporting to a tightly documented program where both Congress and commentators can inspect application flows, allocations, and post‑award expenditures. That will require standardized data collection, new interfaces between state administrative systems and FEMA, and procedures to reconcile recipient‑level spending reports against awarded budgets and allowable uses.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill requires DHS to submit a pre‑grant report to the House Committee on Homeland Security and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at least seven days before making any set of NSGP grants.
The pre‑grant report must list, for each award in the set, the recipient’s name, full address (including State), whether it is located in a designated high‑risk urban area, and the amount of the grant.
The bill mandates an annual report, due no later than 90 days after the end of the fiscal year, that disaggregates applications and awards by State and high‑risk urban area and shows the aggregate amounts of grants.
The annual report must identify the amounts retained by states under the program’s existing retention authority and require recipient‑level accounting showing how award funds not retained by states were expended.
DHS must include an operational description of the NSGP program office—staffing resources and its efforts to administer program duties—so Congress can evaluate administrative capacity and process performance.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Provides the act’s name: the Nonprofit Security Grant Program Transparency Act. This is a technical caption only; it does not change program mechanics but signals the bill’s focus on disclosure and oversight.
Adds statutory reporting requirements
Rewrites subsection (e) of section 2009 to create two reporting obligations: a pre‑grant report and an annual report. The amendment is prescriptive about content: counts of applications, the flow of applications from nonprofits to states and from states to DHS, the number and dollar value of awards disaggregated by state and high‑risk urban area, and recipient‑level identification and award amounts for pre‑grant reporting.
Pre‑grant report content and timing
Requires the Administrator to send Congress a pre‑grant report no later than seven days before making a set of one or more grants. The report must include application counts, the number of state‑forwarded applications, award counts by state and high‑risk urban area, aggregate award amounts, and for each recipient the name, address (with State), high‑risk urban area status, and award amount. The seven‑day timing creates a tight window for DHS to finalize and transmit data ahead of award notices.
Annual report content and program accounting
Mandates an annual report due within 90 days of fiscal year end that aggregates by State: applicant counts, state‑forwarded application counts, number of awards, and total award dollars; specifies amounts retained by states under subsection (c)(2); requires recipient‑level expenditure reporting for funds not retained; provides aggregated tallies for high‑risk urban areas; and obligates DHS to report on the NSGP program office’s staffing and operational efforts. This places ongoing recordkeeping and reconciliation duties on DHS, states, and recipients.
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Explore Government in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- House Committee on Homeland Security and Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs — Gains earlier, standardized, recipient‑level data to perform oversight, budget review, and program performance analysis.
- Watchdog organizations, journalists, and researchers — Receive structured datasets enabling analysis of award patterns, equity of distribution across states and high‑risk urban areas, and state retention practices.
- Donors and institutional funders — Can corroborate public grant activity and recipient expenditures, improving external due diligence and confidence in nonprofit security investments.
- State emergency management agencies with established data systems — Benefit from clearer reporting expectations that align state reporting with federal oversight needs and may justify investment in improved workflows.
Who Bears the Cost
- Small and security‑sensitive nonprofit recipients — Face potential safety and privacy risks from recipient‑level identification and the administrative burden of documenting detailed expenditures.
- State administrative agencies — Must compile and transmit more granular application and award data, reconcile retained amounts, and possibly expand administrative staff or systems to comply.
- DHS/FEMA NSGP program office — Bears the burden of aggregating state data, producing timely pre‑grant and annual reports, and documenting internal staffing and operational efforts without an explicit appropriation in the text.
- Nonprofits lacking finance capacity — May need to hire accountants or consultants to produce expenditure reports and to meet audit and documentation expectations, increasing overhead costs.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill pits two legitimate goals against each other: Congress’s interest in granular oversight and public accountability of federally supported security spending versus the privacy and physical safety needs of nonprofit recipients and the administrative capacity constraints of states and small organizations. The law forces a tradeoff between transparency and operational security that DHS will have to manage in practice.
The bill enhances congressional visibility but leaves several operational and legal questions open. It compels DHS to identify recipients by name and address in a pre‑grant filing to Congress; the statute does not specify whether that information is to be made public or whether DHS should redact or otherwise protect sensitive recipient data.
The absence of explicit confidentiality rules creates ambiguity about how to balance transparency with the security needs of some nonprofits (for example, houses of worship, LGBTQ centers, or organizations serving marginalized groups), a meaningful implementation challenge for DHS and states.
Practically, the bill assumes that states and recipients already collect and can transmit the standardized data requested—application counts, forwardings, retained amounts, and recipient expenditure breakdowns—but it does not provide standards for formatting, timing beyond the narrow deadlines, verification, or funding to build those capabilities. The seven‑day pre‑grant window is particularly tight for data reconciliation and error correction; the annual reporting requirement shifts the burden of verifying recipient expenditures to DHS without prescribing audit rights or penalties for misreporting.
The statute also references amounts retained under subsection (c)(2) but does not change or clarify state retention rules, leaving open how retained administrative fees should be categorized and audited.
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