House Recovery Oversight Hearing: TODAY

At 10 AM today (July 8), the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on oversight of the Recovery Act. The hearing will feature testimony from Gene Dodaro from the Government Accountablility Office, Robert Nabors from the Office of Management and Budget, and governors of three states. This will be the first time since April that Nabors, or anyone at OMB, has testified on the Recovery Act, so the hearing will be our first opportunity to hear testimony on important oversight features, such as the new recipient reporting model [1] unveiled a couple weeks ago.

Also, the Committee asked OMB Watch to prepare a list of possible questions for today's panelists, which we have pasted below. These questions won't necessarily be used in the hearing, but at the very least, the list is a good review of the questions we still have concerning the Recovery Act.

Unfortunately, I don't think the hearing will be broadcast, either on TV or online, so you should head over to the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2154, and catch it in person. And if you can't make it in person, keep an eye on their website [2], where they will eventually post the testimonies from today.

LATE BREAKING UPDATE (9:45 a.m. July 8, 2009): The committee reports that it will be streaming the hearing live on its website, at http://oversight.house.gov [3].

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Questions developed for the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, for the July 8, 2009 hearing on oversight of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Questions for the Office of Management and Budget

On Feb. 9, President Obama said regarding the Recovery Act that “…every American will be able to go online and see where and how we're spending every dime.”

• OMB has required each agency to provide weekly reports on expenditures and other information to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. That information was to be available to the public in machine readable formats, according to earlier guidance that you provided. We have three questions:

1. Why have you not provided more detailed instructions to the agencies about the content and formats for these machine readable feeds? My understanding is that some agencies provide this information through Excel spreadsheets, while others use PDFs. It would make sense to require uniform feeds. Additionally, there is information about each program area and how much is obligated and paid out. Why isn’t there information about the entity that has received the money? Will OMB be providing instructions to agencies on providing expanded information on the grants and contracts provided?
2. Since the federal agencies have information about who has received grants, contracts and other forms of financial assistance, why isn’t that information available through Recovery.gov in a searchable format? OMB Watch is pleased to see some of the information is available through USASpending.gov. But why isn’t it complete information?
3. In early guidance OMB instructed agencies to post summaries of contracts it provides. A quick look through the agency Recovery Act websites shows that few, if any agencies, are posting such information. Moreover, it is difficult to find such information on each agency. Why isn’t that information available through Recovery.gov or USASpending.gov?

• In its June Recovery Act recipient reporting guidance, OMB laid out a system for centralized recipient reporting, but only requires reporting down to one tier below the prime recipient, what OMB calls the “sub-recipient.” This means that if a state receives a grant and sub-contracts work to the city, the public will have information about all activities. But if the city sub-contracts to any number of companies to implement the work – a likely scenario – the federal government and the public will not know about who received the money or what they are doing with it. Direct reporting by ALL Recovery Act recipients is needed to ensure full transparency and accountability. Why is OMB not requiring reporting and disclosure of all entities spending Recovery Act funds, which will limit the public’s knowledge of the Recovery Act’s impact?

• According to the April OMB guidance, every federal agency must create a detailed plan for every Recovery Act project, complete with a section with concrete performance metrics for each project. This data is crucial to helping the public understand the effectiveness of the Recovery Act. However, this data will not be reported through the recipient reporting system outlined in the June guidance, which is how FederalReporting.gov – and, by extension, Recovery.gov – will be receiving its data. How will the performance data be collected? And how will it be published to the public? And will it be integrated with the other spending data on Recovery.gov, USAspending.gov, and other government sites?

• The recent June guidance listed all of the information which recipients must report to FederalReporting.gov, including project status, number of jobs created, and place of performance. These parameters, however, provide limited information about each project, and will severely hamstring future efforts at analyzing the effects of the Recovery Act. Will OMB require the collection and reporting of an expanded data set, such as equity metrics? Examples of such equity metrics would include the race, gender, class, age, and disability of those impacted by Recovery Act programs, projects and activities.

• An important aspect of Recovery Act transparency is public access. The general public should have access to all the data generated by Recovery Act recipients, to facilitate independent examination and analysis. Will OMB allow public access to the underlying data reported by the recipients into FederalReporting.gov? Will there be a machine readable format for obtaining the data in FederalReporting.gov? In other words, will the public have access to the same data to which Recovery.gov will have access?

• The June reporting guidance vaguely details the penalties for those who do not comply with their Recovery Act reporting duties, or for those who suffer from chronic reporting problems. However, the guidance does not specify who will be monitoring this compliance, or who will be administering the punishments for noncompliance. Who, or which agency, is responsible for these tasks?

• The Recovery Act establishes new requirements imposed on federal agencies, OMB, states, and other entities. What steps has OMB taken to ensure that these entities have the necessary resources to implement the Recovery Act?

Questions for the Government Accountability Office

• Do you see any deficiencies in OMB’s recent reporting guidance? Are there any ways in which the current reporting system could be improved?

• Have you identified any significant patterns in Recovery Act spending to date?

• The Recovery Act provides statutory authority to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board for, among other things, oversight of the money distributed under this law to prevent fraud, waste and abuse, and to develop Recovery.gov. OMB’s authority appears to be aimed at providing instructions to agencies on what information to collect and general implementation of the law. The Vice President appears to have overall coordination authority. Is this your understanding of the different authorities? If so, how has this worked so far? What cautions might you raise?

Questions for the Governors

• While the Recovery Act provides a great deal of funding for state projects, it does not include funds for the administrative duties left to the states, such as auditing, oversight, reporting, and other compliance requirements. Do your states have the resources to properly fund these administrative duties of the Recovery Act? If not, what are the implications? For example, will your state seek a waiver from the assurances provided under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund? To what extent is Recovery Act money supplanting state funds?

• Are there any lessons you learned from the creation of your states’ Recovery Act websites that could be applied to the redesign of Recovery.gov?

• High quality data allows us to be able to show how the Recovery funds were spent, but we must also make sure the general public has a say in how those funds are allocated in their communities. What steps have you taken (or do you intend to take) to elicit participation from your constituents – especially those who may not have sufficient access to decision-makers (for example, low-income communities of color) – in formulating your Recovery Act spending plans?

• OMB has instructed federal agencies to make available summaries of contracts under the Recovery Act and to the extent possible use open competition in making awards. Are you now or do you plan to require copies of Recovery Act contracts awarded within the state to be made publicly available? What about open competition requirements?