GAO: Obama administration website on stimulus spending fails on transparency

the hill ^ | 7/7/10 | Gautham Nagesh

[Nachum]

The website used to track stimulus spending does not meet the transparency requirements laid out by the administration last year, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

According to the 400-page report, only a quarter of the projects listed on Recovery.gov provide clear and complete information on the cost, schedule, purpose, location and status of stimulus-funded work. Most of the entries on the site provide some of that information, but 7 percent of the entries provide little to no information about how stimulus dollars are being spent, the report said. The study was conducted at the request of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

The report notes that agencies that received guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on what information to include in the stimulus reports tended to have more complete data on the website. The report cited a transit award used to purchase hybrid buses as an example of clear, transparent reporting, in contrast to a highway award for "chip sealing" that failed to explain what the practice is or why it is being used.

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[cranked]

Earth calling SHERLOCK HOLMES.........Thanks for the frakin heads up there, GAO...good to see you people on the ball......not. Tell us something we do not already KNOW, kkthx. :duh:

[sphinx]

I'm inclined to cut the administration a little slack on thnis one. Moving more federal reporting online is not a new idea; it was, for example, a recurring emphasis for the Bush Administration as well. The problem is how to wrestle big, unwieldly legacy systems into new formats that are understandable, reliable, can be easily updated, and that still protect confidential information. Given the size and complexity of the federal beast, this is not an easy task, particularly given that federal agency IT budgets are notoriously underfunded and given that the people tasked with the transition are the same people who are struggling to make archaic legacy systems work on a day to day basis.

Passage of the Recovery Act provided a big, brand new platform that was intended to be web-friendly from the outset. It's a work in progress, but there is much more information being posted faster than is customary for the feds. Some of the growing pains have been due to the fact that some information has been posted before it's been adequately scrubbed. This is especially true when agencies are relying on recipient reporting. The reporting deadlines are aggressive, which is a good goal, but verification and reconciliation of all the numbers take time. That said, some of the platforms being rolled out are probably worth keeping, tweaking, and expanding.

Team Obama naturally wants you to believe this is all their idea. I tend to see it more as a continuing evolution of a longstanding federal management objective.

[demsux]

I've been tracking how much money Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) and her husband have received from the stimulus for their apartment projects. So far, they have gotten over $3 million that I can find.

Funny thing is, now that info is being scrubbed from Recovery.gov...BUT, I screen captured it while it was up.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[”It's clear this was a very large undertaking,” Kate Siggerud, co-author of the report and managing director of physical infrastructure issues at GAO. . .]

The whole scam relies on it's “large” scale to make auditing costly and difficult.

[Rebelbase]

most

transparent

administration

ever

[Southack]

MacCaskill blew the whistle on 0bama illegally firing an Inspector General who was investigating embezzlement by one of 0bama’s former NBA friends.

Mud on her is being dug up by 0bama’s hacksters to remind her to “stay in line” by not pursuing 0bama’s lawbreaking.

Incidently, 0bama co-sponsored the Inspector-General law when he was in the Senate that he has now broken as President.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Nachum. The financial institutions should be this transparent in their hiring practices.

according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO)... only a quarter of the projects listed on Recovery.gov provide clear and complete information on the cost, schedule, purpose, location and status of stimulus-funded work... 7 percent of the entries provide little to no information

[Jet Jaguar]

What is Wateree Community Actions?
watereecommunityactionsinc.org ^ | February 24, 2010 | N/A
Posted on February 24, 2010 1:15:37 AM EST by Jet Jaguar

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2458074/posts

According to the Recovery.org website, Sumter, S.C. received $15,827,385 of our tax money. According to the same site, this money was credited with creating or saving 4.91 jobs.

Were did the money go?

The county of Sumter got $62,400. The city of Sumter got $253,828.

The Santee-Wateree RTA got in excess of $1,000,000.

The Santee Lynches regional Council of Governments got $3,103,434 for one grant and another $112,017 for a second.

Then it gets interesting.

Wateree Community Action Inc is awarded $700,000.

Then awarded $1,076,865.

Then awarded $6,435,805.

Then awarded $429,049.

Then awarded $244,800.

Then awarded $2,073,186.

Sumter County has one of the highest unemployment rates in S.C.

[KTM rider]

Fits right in with the plan :

To create a giant hole that only socialism can fill,

using the USA working class as the taxslaves to do the digging. paying self destructive taxes and evil usery interest rates

using powerless puppet fools like Obama and the entire political system as their slave masters

while a narrow class of financial elites around the world stand by and watch,

and they finally have taken the USA as a slave to fill their bushel baskets and fight their phony skirmishes

with the help of the US political system to do the deed

[dr_who]

That’s because it’s just another Obama campaign site...paid for by the taxpayers.

[FreeKeys]

I screen captured it while it was up.

Mind posting it here?

[demsux]

I don’t know how...I’m digitally amish.

[FreeKeys]

First upload it to a free graphics hosting site like this one here: http://tinypic.com/ and follow the instructions. Then post the link they supply you with inside the quotes like this:
< img src=”HERE” > — only with no space next to the arrows