Recovery.gov Correcting the Obvious (Mostly)

The Chairman of the Recovery And Accountability Board (RAT Board), Earl Devaney, said in his December 15 message that transparency and accountability for stimulus money has been less than desired. The accuracy of the data provided has had some flaws as well. They are implementing some fixes that will cause some people to react with a "duh."

Under "Improving data quality," the Chairman addresses the problem of a twenty-day window in which data can be corrected. Federalreporting.gov will be changed to allow corrections to data submitted on a continuing basis (starting January 30), with updates posted every two weeks. Let's see now, who thought they would get accurate data by shutting down corrections after 20 days in the first place? If that was a threat, designed to make recipients do it right the first time, I believe the powers that be overestimated some of their recipients. Maybe this will help.

Second, the system will be changed so that it checks zip codes against a database of Congressional districts. Did you realize that reporting entities had to show which Congressional districts received the money? I've never understood why the reporters had to do that. Why doesn't the system simply determine the district, rather than requiring it as input? Since the same system will be checking the input against their database, it would be simpler to just have the system make that determination and, duh, make the reporting simpler.

The system will now have internal logic checks to kick out obviously wrong data. The two examples given are when more stimulus money is reported spent than the entity received, and when projects are reported as completed when the entity has not received any ARRA funding yet. These are obvious checks that should have been built into the system, but were probably not included because of the rapidity with which the system was implemented. Going that fast, you can't think of everything, and sometimes even the obvious slips by when the work has that tight a deadline.

So improvements are on the horizon, and, even though they may seem like obvious flaws in the system, they are being corrected. Maybe it is time for reporters to complain about other quirks in the system that need repair. Any suggestions for improvements?

How ARRA Impacts Health Care IT

ARRA has provided funding to begin standardizing electronic health records for all Americans. Eventually, if you live in Hot Coffee, Mississippi, and are visiting Scranton, Pennsylvania, where you get sick and must be hospitalized, your medical records will be available to the doctors at your hospital electronically. Your care improves, because duplicate tests can be eliminated, medical errors can be reduced, and your care when you return home can be coordinated with the appropriate doctors. That's the concept.

ARRA authorizes health IT spending as $87.9 billion for Medicaid, $39 billion to extend healthcare coverage to the unemployed, $21 billion in COBRA subsidies, and $22.8 billion to expand and modernize health IT. Another $25.5 billion, more or less, is spread out for other healthcare-related spending.

Sound like Big Brother is watching you? All of your information, available for the picking. Well, Congress has increased privacy laws for personal health information (PHI). There are also civil and criminal penalties for the misuse of PHI. Maybe they can safeguard our information, maybe not. All I can say is that privacy issues held up this sort of information technology reform for years, and the safeguards in the law were apparently sufficient to overcome those concerns in Congress.

You can read more about PHI privacy here.

Question: I received a Pell grant. Do I have to do this ARRA reporting?

No. The school has to file Section 1512 reports, but you, as the recipient of the grant, do not have to file any special ARRA report on the money, even if ARRA provided the money for your grant.

Question: I received an ARRA grant. Do I have to have a separate bank account for the funds?

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act does not require these funds to be kept in a separate account. ARRA funds must be segregated, but this can be done through your accounting system. Transactions involving ARRA funds have to be clearly identifiable as such.

Remember that your granting agency, federal or state, may impose additional restrictions on grants beyond those specifically imposed by ARRA. A grantor may require the funds to be kept in a separate bank account, but that is an agency-specific rule, and not generally applicable to all ARRA receipients.

More Stimulus Money Coming?

A new article in the Washington Post says that the Obama administration will lose $200 Billion less than expected in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds, the funds used to bail out financial institutions. President Obama, according to the article, is expected to ask Congree to use this money for job creation.

According to the Post, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats have been drafting a jobs bill that would tap resources in the bailout program.

Among the proposals being considered are funding as much as $70 billion in new transportation and infrastructure projects, providing new tax credits aimed at encouraging small businesses to hire workers and providing additional aid to state governments to preserve public sector jobs."

This money may not have come in under ARRA, but it sure sounds like stimulus money. Sounds like they want to expand what is being done with ARRA. The next question, IF the money actually materializes, and IF Congress will go along with plans to use it this way, will Congress apply the ARRA rules to this additional money, or will they come up with some different way to regulate it? They should really think long and hard before they set up something new to do the same thing, if they want to use different rules. There is no excuse for repeating the mess that has been made of generating regulations for and reporting on the usage of ARRA funds.

Improving Compliance in Recovery Act Recipient Reporting

It appears that OMB is serious about the ARRA recipients who have still not filed their 1512 reports. Memorandum number M-10-05 was issued on November 30, 2009, and relates to "a number of recipients [who] have not filed as required by Section 1512 of the Recovery Act and OMB guidance."

Are they serious about enforcing the reporting requirements? Well, there is some serious sabre-rattling, at least. Recipients not in compliance with reporting requirements "are subject to Federal action, up to and including the termination of Federal funding or the ability to receive Federal funds in the future." Terminating their ability to receive federal funds in the future might well be a serious enough threat to get these people to submit their reports. We shall see.

The memo instructs federal departments and agencies to identify their recipients that are noncompliant, then contact these recipients and either determine why they did not comply and help them do so, or both. Then they are to assess the severity of the situation and determine what action, if any, needs to be taken. In the case of fraud, the appropriate action may be criminal in nature.

So if a recipient has not completed the required 1512 reports, the feds have been told to go after him. Sounds like the OIGs may be busy!