III.B.4: Recovery.gov
Address the issue of presenting our data in a user-friendly format to ensure its use by the widest possible variety of stakeholders. Other Information:
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) requires an unprecedented
level of transparency into government spending. In particular it mandates: • The creation of “a web site on the Internet to
be named Recovery.gov, to foster greater accountability and transparency in the use of funds made available in this Act.”
Recovery.gov is operated by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which was also created by the Recovery Act.
http://www.recovery.gov • The creation of an agency-specific Recovery webpage located within the Agency site and identified
on the home page. http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/ • Weekly reporting by Agencies on obligations, outlays, and activities
• Quarterly reporting by Recipients on awards, spending, jobs impact, and project status. The Department of Education has
been an active participant in the development and on-going evolution of these sites and tools since their inception. As a
result of these initiatives, education stakeholders can now track on a weekly basis the speed with which the Department is
awarding its ARRA funding and the extent to which States are putting this money to work. This provides a new level of accountability
for federal and state education spending. At the local level, parents and community members can enter the zip code of their
local school district, identify exactly how much ARRA funding has been awarded and spent to date, and scrutinize vendor payments
over $25,000, holding local officials accountable for their decisions. As the Department gains experience with the new level
of transparency provided via Recovery.gov, ED continues to address the issue of presenting its data in a user-friendly format
to ensure its use by the widest possible variety of stakeholders. In doing so, ED has gone beyond the requirements of recovery.gov
in the following areas: • Weekly ARRA spending to date is posted on ED.gov/recovery with detailed state and programlevel detail.
This provides the appropriate level of aggregation to help citizens understand the flow of funds in their state to different
programs, and for program advocates to understand state-level differences in flow of funds for the program in question. •
Section 1512 award, spending, and jobs reporting data are posted on ed.gov/recovery at the state and program level. This allows
citizens to assess their State’s progress in using ARRA funds to save or create jobs, and allows policymakers to evaluate
the impact of different ED ARRA programs relative to job creation. This enhanced level of transparency for ARRA programs,
and the attention to both the availability and accessibility of the information presented has set a new standard of transparency
for the Department. The next step for the Department is to apply these principles to all programs, not just to Recovery Act
programs. In particular, FFATA sub-award reporting implementation will be critical to achieving greater transparency into
education funding at the local level.
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