Group Permissions - Nested Group Structure

In our community we have many Groups > Sub-Group > Sub-Sub-Group etc. 

I realize this is a complicated structure in some ways, but mostly works well for our community. We are now looking to audit our roles and permissions but this structure is causing some difficulty. 

We will be creating custom roles that will functionally be admins, but only within certain groups and not site-wide. In other words, moderators with extra privileges in some areas of our site, but they will be regular Registered Users when they leave their respective groups. 

Is it possible to add higher level permissions to a certain role within one group and then have those changes honored in al sub-groups or sub-sub-groups? From what I have tested it looks like I have to manually dig down each level and make those changes again. 

Really I am just asking for some help to see if there is an easier less time intensive way to do this, or if I am just missed some setting somewhere within the Membership section of the Admin Panel. Any guidance is appreciated!