Agency Plans Add Another Element of Accountability to Recovery Act Spending

On May 17, the Obama administration released the next wave of Recovery Act information, this time by posting Agency Recovery Plans [1] on Recovery.gov [2]. These plans, which are mandated by the Recovery Act, include broad, agency-wide plans and program-specific plans on how each federal agency intends to expend its appropriated Recovery Act funds. Like other Recovery Act-related data dissemination, this latest phase in Recovery Act spending transparency marks another move in the right direction but needs some refinement.

All agency-wide plans contain four sections:

• Broad Recovery Goals - Essentially a recovery mission statement and contains a declaration of each agency's goals for the recovery
• Competition on Contracts - Information on how much that agency's Recovery Act funds will be awarded through contracts
• Contract Type - A discussion of the extent to which that agency will rely on competitively bid contracts
• Accountability Plan - A narrative description of how that agency plans to implement accountability policies

Agency Recovery Plans also include separate "Program Plans," which detail the programs the agencies are implementing as part of their Recovery efforts, and include the following sections:

• Objectives
• Measures
• Schedule and Milestones
• Projects and Activities
• Review Process
• Cost and Performance Plan
• Energy Efficiency Spending Plans
• Program Plan Award Types

There are some 270 Program Plans, spread across 28 of the federal agencies that have received Recovery Act funds. Although the reporting format is consistent for all plans, the programs detailed in the plans range from simple expansions or extensions of old programs, such as the Early Head Start Recovery Plan [3], to complex new programs, such as the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Recovery Plan [4], which will provide funds to the states to "avoid reductions in education and other essential public services."

Each of these Program Plans has detailed information about the program, such as objectives, timelines, measurement criteria, review processes, and award types. And while a comprehensive survey of the nearly 300 program-specific plans would provide insight into how well each agency is formulating and promulgating Recovery Act spending plans, a sampling of plans reveals unevenness of information quality both between and within agencies.

For example, the Department of Energy [5] lists several programs for which "No Data Available" appears under most of the major section headings, while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Program Plans [6] consistently lack information under the "Measures" section. These two agencies are the outliers, however, as other agencies are fairly comprehensive in completing section detail. However, for all program plans, nowhere is the total appropriated amount clearly stated. Although one can view this information in each agency's Weekly Report in another section of the Recovery.gov website, this basic but important information should be included in each Program Plan.

While information in the plans is uneven, it is easy to find. Links to Agency Plans are prominently displayed on the Recovery.gov website. Not only can one browse by agency, but also by Objectives [7], Public Benefits [8], Types of Programs [9], and Measures of Performance [10] to find different programs. While increased functionality is certainly welcomed, browsing by the latter four options produces a seemingly-random list of agency programs.

One interesting feature within these four sections is a word cloud of top keywords used in each of the sections that is clickable and will pull up the specific section of the program plans that mention those words. This allows both instant understanding for users of the topic areas most cited in agency plans, but also allows for a quick search that narrows the list of programs to just those related to "construction" or "health" – topics that cut across programs and agencies.

Finally, like most websites that seek to disseminate information as broadly as possible, Recovery.gov includes RSS feeds for all the agency [11] and program [12] plans. Unfortunately, while a Program Plan RSS feed is available on Recovery.gov, each agency does not have its own Program Plan feed, forcing the user to subscribe to a feed that contains information on all Recovery Act Project Plans.

Despite some need for improvement, that these Agency and Program Plans are available in a single location and in a user-friendly format is laudable. And while they can sometimes be just vague summaries of programs whose specifics are months away from being released, the promulgation of these plans is yet another step in the right direction by an administration seeking to make Recovery Act spending transparent and accountable. Citizens, government watchdogs, program advocates, and the news media have another criterion by which to evaluate Recovery Act spending.