The wait is over. The Office of Management and Budget has released the long-awaited new version of its reporting rules for recipients of Recovery Act funds. In addition to the 41-page memorandum, there is a 13-page list of programs covered by the rules and a 52-page supplement that describes the data model in excruciating detail. These guidance documents do not directly apply to contractors working directly with the federal government, but they do cover grant recipients (including state government agencies) and their sub-recipients and contractors.

The good news is that OMB has given greater clarity to the responsibilities of prime recipients when it comes to the flow of dollars and the creation of jobs. The primes must report detailed data on their own activities and those of their immediate sub-recipients, though they may delegate reporting to the subs. All the information will be collected through an input portal at www.federalreporting.gov and then will make its way to the Recovery.gov site that will provide for public access.

The not-so-good news is that the reporting system seems to extend only to first-level sub-recipients. That means that if a state agency (prime recipient) gives a contract to a company (sub-recipient) which then awards sub-contracts to various other firms, the data on those subcontractors might not get reported. The Coalition for An Accountable Recovery and States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery have pushed and continue to push for full reporting all the way through the money chain down to a cutoff level of $25,000 or so. And we believe that all the employers in that chain should report directly rather than leaving it up to higher-level entities. It is encouraging that the Recovery Act data system will be set up in a way that could accommodate more comprehensive reporting.

When it comes to job reporting, the new OMB guidance seems to put all the responsibility on the prime recipient and is unclear on the extent to which the prime has to collect thorough data from all the sub-recipients. It also seems that OMB is not imposing strict rules on how employers measure the number of jobs retained as a result of stimulus funding-and is willing to let them lump together jobs created and jobs retained. It can be tricky to come up with exact measures of retained jobs, but there are risks in leaving it up to each employer to decide how to make the calculation.

There are more technical issues that the CAR coalition will comment on soon. Overall, the new OMB document is a step forward but still far from the goal of full transparency. Apparently, we need to pray for more guidance.

(crossposted on the STAR Coalition blog)

The stimulus anecdote war is escalating. This week Sen. Tom Coburn issued a report that is highly critical of some 100 specific Recovery Act projects around the country. The Oklahoma Republican uses these examples to bolster his argument that “Congress chose the wrong approach to stimulating the economy by spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need.”

Although Coburn claims these example were found “after a review of thousands of projects,” there is every indication that the research that went into the report consisted of little more than energetic keyword searching in media archives such as Google News to find articles about projects that could be easily mocked. For example: a tunnel under a highway designed to be used by turtles and the repaving of a backup runway at the little-used John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. This is the same superficial methodology that has long been used to ridicule projects funded by Congressional earmarks.

While members of the Obama Administration may be unhappy about Coburn’s report, they cannot legitimately complain about the way it was put together. The document seems to be meant as a rebuttal to another clip job — with an opposite message — that was issued by Vice President Joe Biden as a purported progress report on the Recovery Act.

Yet Ed DeSeve, Senior Advisor to the President for Recovery Act Implementation, fired back with a 19-page critique of Coburn’s  description of the 100 projects, claiming in most cases that the depiction was false or misleading — or that the project itself is “still under review.”

One interesting exchange concerned item number 73 on Coburn’s list: “Large federal contractors who have paid big fines for violating environmental, safety, and discrimination rules are receiving stimulus funds.” He then cites CACI International (profiled here), one of whose subsidiaries was the employer of civilian interrogators accused of involvement in torture and abuse of inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. DeSeve’s document ignores the question of CACI’s track recoprd and simply notes that it is “one of the 100 biggest federal contractors overall” and that the Forest Service stimulus contracts cited by Coburn are a tiny portion of its government business. This is apparently supposed to make any transgressions by the company irrelevant.

The cherrypicking of self-serving anecdotes from secondary sources — by either proponents or critics of the Recovery Act — is no substitute for real data. We are still waiting for the Office of Management and Budget to release its final rules on how federal agencies should collect data on Recovery Act spending and job creation. Assuming that those rules provide for thorough reporting, we can look forward to the day when debates on the effectiveness of the Act are based on a more solid foundation.

Crossposted on the STAR Coalition website blog.

Good Jobs First has launched a new Recovery Act website as part of the creation of States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery (STAR), a new network promoting state and local activism to ensure the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is transparent, accountable, fair and effective.

The STAR Coalition includes national organizing networks such as the Apollo Alliance, Center for Community Change, Common Cause, National People’s Action, Progressive States Network, Transportation Equity Network, Partnership for Working Families, Smart Growth America and U.S. PIRG as well as many of their state and local affiliates. The STAR Coalition collaborates with and shares members with the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery, which is working at the federal level to promote ARRA transparency and accountability.

The new STAR Coalition website includes the Recovery Act Info Center, a deep resource for activists and journalists alike.

For each state plus DC, web pages contain:

• An evaluation of the state’s Recovery Act website, especially with regard to disclosure of contractor information.

• Details on Recovery Act oversight policies and structures.

• A synopsis of policy debates on ARRA issues occurring in the state.

• Key data such as total ARRA funding the state is expected to receive.

• Listings of watchdog organizations, their ARRA publications, and other resources.

In many states, these watchdog groups will help expand and update the state pages.

The site also includes:

• Transparency Players: a review of ARRA transparency issues, including a rundown of players in the Administration, Congress, and non-profits shaping policy.

• Money and Policy: a description of national ARRA funding streams-plus policy debates-in key areas such as transportation, energy, education and unemployment compensation.

• Weblinks and Bibliography: an extensive collection of ARRA weblinks and resources, including obscure items such as unpublished Congressional Research Service reports.

• City Websites: an overview of ARRA websites launched by the nation’s largest cities.

The STAR website will be expanded throughout 2009 and 2010 as new data becomes available from the federal government. Currently, only a handful of states have any reporting data on their recovery websites.

The Coalition for an Accountable Recovery (CAR), co-chaired by OMB Watch and Good Jobs First, is continuing its effort to get the Obama Administration to adopt broad disclosure policies in connection with the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). CAR has just submitted comments on the latest draft policies issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the data collection that will take place for ARRA contracts and grants.  The data will form the foundation of the disclosure that the administration has vowed to provide through its Recovery.gov website.

CAR acknowledges that significant progress has been made in the two months since President Obama signed the law, but we argue that the proposed OMB procedures need clarification and adjustment.

One of the biggest issues is the scope of the required reporting. We recommend that OMB collect data from all entities (excluding individuals) that receive a contract or award involving ARRA funds—whether it comes directly from the federal government, from a state agency or via a subcontract or subaward from a federal or state contractor or awardee. The cutoff would be any payment of $25,000 or less. Only through such extensive reporting, we maintain, will it be possible to get a complete picture of ARRA money flows and economic impacts.

To enable this process, we argue that every recipient of ARRA funds should enroll with the federal government’s Central Contractor Registration system and be assigned a unique identification code.

Since job creation is the paramount objective of ARRA, we recommend that all recipients be required to report on the number of jobs created or saved. Since job quality is as important as job quantity, we also argue that recipients should be required to report data on average wages and health insurance coverage.

Apart from job issues, we urge OMB to ensure that agencies collect other relevant performance data on the impacts of ARRA spending.

To add an additional level of openness, we recommend that OMB require that all Recovery Act RFPs, contracts (with any necessary redactions), bids and waivers be made available to the public, including those involving contracts and grants awarded by the states.

We also ask that OMB expand the amount of data that federal agencies include in their weekly financial reports and that they provide electronic data feeds to the public.

With steps such as these, we believe, the Obama Administration can live up to its promise to provide unprecedented transparency and accountability in this massive expenditure of taxpayer funds.