Agencies scrubbing recovery data in preparation for release Friday

WILLIAMBURG, Va. -- The Recovery Board will make public Friday data from more than 120,000 entities across the country.

This information will explain in greater detail how agencies have spent, contracted out or granted more than $194 billion under the Recovery Act as of Sept. 30.

Ed DeSeve, special advisor to the Office of Management and Budget director for implementation of the Recovery Act and special advisor to the Vice President, says agencies needed more time than initially thought to get the data ready.

DeSeve, speaking Sunday night at the Executive Leadership Conference sponsored by IAC and ACT, says the law mandates agencies to publicize the data by Oct. 30, or one month after the end of the fiscal year. DeSeve says the Recovery Board thought this could be done by Oct. 10, but as they went through the data they found some mistakes.

"Federal agencies are analyzing the data to do as much as they can from a high level view to make sure it's accurate and consistent," he says. "When all the data is posted by Recovery and Transparency Board, it will be as much as possible accurate and complete."

DeSeve says many of the mistakes agencies found were pretty simple like dollars were put where jobs were supposed to be.

He says one agency found a $3 billion error, and another found a housing program in Ohio which created 384,000 jobs, when it was suppose to be cost $384,000.

"It was easy to find those and agencies tracked those down and worked with recipients to fix those," he says. "We had to go through and scrub the data very carefully so that transparency became clarity. If it's transparent and all you are seeing is mud, then you are not much that is very good. We had balance and set those parameters. We had to achieve performance that we did it in such as way that we achieved it with integrity."

Some of the Recovery data already has been published. He says by Oct. 15 the Recovery Board publicly posted data from federal contractors.

Agencies have obligated about 50 percent of all Recovery Act dollars so far, and DeSeve says by September 2010, 70 percent of money will be handed out. So over the next year, agencies will remain under pressure to award or grant money quickly and accurately.

He adds that agencies are in good shape to meet the 70 percent goal.

"We talk to the agencies, grantees and states about any impediments that might exist," DeSeve says. "Where impediments exist we try to clear them out so outlays can move quickly."

DeSeve says every week his office issues the status of Recovery Act obligations and outlays to Recovery.gov.

DeSeve adds that there are no major challenges that stand in the way of obligating and issuing the funding.

Click here for FederalNewsRadio's full coverage of the Executive Leadership Conference.

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