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?