Recovery Act Transparency in 51 Flavors: A Sample of State Recovery Act Websites

An informal OMB Watch survey of eight state-level Recovery Act websites reveals that the access to and quality of information on Recovery Act expenditures varies widely from state to state.

Federal agencies have committed and are distributing Recovery Act funds at a rapid pace, through either formula allocations or a bidding process. Since the enactment of the act on Feb. 17, some $72 billion [1] has been committed by federal agencies to fund myriad Recovery Act projects. The vast majority of these funds, of which $15.4 billion has already gone out the door, are disbursed to state governments that then distribute the money to individuals, private organizations, and local governments.

Like Recovery.gov, state Recovery Act websites should clearly answer four basic questions:

• What Recovery Act funds are available to the state?
• How can individuals or organizations apply for Recovery Act funds?
• Which organizations received Recovery Act funds?
• What did those organizations do with those funds?

Unfortunately, there is not a single state website that can provide the answer to these basic questions of spending transparency. OMB Watch conducted an informal review of eight state-level Recovery Act websites (Connecticut [2], Louisiana [3], Maine [4], Maryland [5], Nebraska [6], Texas [7], Virginia [8], and Washington State [9]). While all of the surveyed sites provide a breakdown of Recovery Act funds by category (e.g., health care, infrastructure, education, etc.), most are limited in more detailed data.

For example, the Maryland and Washington State Recovery Act websites have user-friendly, interactive maps showing county-by-county breakdowns of Recovery Act funding by category. Yet neither allows users to perform a simple search such as typing in a ZIP code to find a list of all Recovery Act projects within a given neighborhood. Louisiana's site is a particularly striking example of limited information, listing program names with allocated funding amounts with no further information, such as descriptions of the programs. The Frequently Asked Questions section [10] of the Maine website reveals an unsettling aspect of that state's allocation information availability.

Until the funding is distributed by the Federal government to states and local governments, and eventually to your community, we won't be able to determine exactly where all of the funding will go. Over the next few weeks and months, there's going to be a lot of data coming in, as we coordinate with different agencies. As soon as the first dollars start to go out, you'll be able to track where the money is going.

Although data on the distribution of Recovery Act funds in Maine is needed and welcome, distributing that information after the money has been spent will significantly diminish the usefulness of those data to groups seeking to apply for Recovery Act grants and contracts. It will also limit the ability of organizations and citizens to use the information on the sites to hold those responsible for implementation and funding accountable.

In addition to creating visibility of who received the money, another key aspect of Recovery Act transparency is visibility in the process of how groups or individuals get the money. State and local service providers not familiar with their state's grant or contract processes may be locked out of receiving Recovery Act funds. Texas's site is notable for its list [11] of Recovery Act grant and loan opportunities. The available awards are grouped by category and include links to the administering agencies (state and federal). But like other state sites, information on how to apply for or bid on grants and contracts is not immediately apparent. Washington State's website also has a useful list of programs [12] that are providing funding for state projects, but it is also thin on details about how to apply for funds. Nebraska provides similar information on its website, but it is grouped by category. Connecticut's site provides a link to federally administered grants [13] available in the state but gives no information on grants or contracts that will be available directly from the state government. Louisiana's site, which was, by far, the least informative of any state site reviewed, contains no information on Recovery Act grants or contracts that are available in the state.

Unsurprisingly, no state website surveyed contains Recovery Act data reported by recipients. No state site details who has received the funds for grants or contracts that have already been awarded. However, recent OMB guidance [14] to federal agencies on Recovery Act implementation indicates that the first recipient reports are to be available by Oct. 10, making this information gap expected. It is notable, however, that not a single state has been more aggressive than the federal government with respect to collecting recipient spending reports.

As recipients begin expending funds, it is doubtless that some waste, fraud, and abuse will occur. Unfortunately, whistleblowers seeking to expose malfeasance may be at a loss on how to report it. While there are established hotlines for waste, fraud, and abuse at the federal level, the same is not immediately apparent for most of the surveyed states. Maine's and Texas's websites are the exceptions. Prominently displayed on the Maine Recovery Act homepage is information on how to report fraud. Texas's site has this information as a sub-menu item [15], making it less obvious but otherwise easy to find. The other six sites had no information readily available about reporting waste, fraud, and abuse. Although an exhaustive search of the other state sites might reveal such contact information, this information should be prominently displayed to potential whistleblowers to facilitate waste, fraud, and abuse reporting.

This survey of eight states' Recovery Act websites reveals an uneven landscape in a critical component to track the use of Recovery Act funds. And while it is too early to judge the ultimate quality of spending data that may be available on these sites, this sample indicates that it will likely vary as much as the quality of information today. This unevenness should not be surprising in that the federal government has not provided resources for or guidance on developing websites. In many respects, the states, where the initial batch of Recovery Act funds is flowing, are in the center of the mix. This indicates that the federal government should take the lead in offering not only funds to assist states in enabling Recovery Act transparency, but in providing technical assistance and advice. Without national leadership and widely promulgated standards, Recovery Act transparency will be severely hindered, as data within some states are incomplete, and data among states are incomparable.