Recovery Official: Reporting Errors ‘Not Unequivocally Bad’
EmailABC News' Elizabeth Gorman reports:
After conceding the fact that the $18 million government Web site tracking stimulus funds doesn't accurately track U.S. jobs data, the chairman of the Obama administration's Recovery Board told Congress today that he wasn't surprised by the mistakes found on the Web site listing non-existent congressional districts.
He said the experience should serve as a lesson that will help enhance transparency.
"In a way they are not unequivocally bad. In reality this data should serve in the long run as evidence of what transparency can achieve. In the past, this data would have been scrubbed from top to bottom before it's released, and the agencies would never have released the information until it was near perfect," Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said in testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
He said that the inaccuracies on Recovery.gov were caused in part by recipients of stimulus money who put decimal places in wrong places — sometimes confusing a $10 million contract for a $10 billion contract. He said recipients also used the wrong data entry fields to report how many jobs were created or saved, instead entering the dollar amount they were awarded.
"Even more notorious were significant errors relating to congressional districts," he said.
Recipients names who chose not to comply with reporting standards will be placed permanently on Recovery.gov, according to Devaney.
"What we're all seeing at least at this first report period is not particularly pretty. This raw form, unsanitized data may cause embarrassment for some agencies and recipients, but my expectation is that any embarrassment suffered will encourage self-correcting behavior and lead to better reporting in the future," Devaney said.
Devaney suggested amending the Recovery Act to include penalties on persons who don't comply with government reporting standards.
"Even if criminal penalties aren't practical, the fact that some would willfully not file is distressing and must be addressed," Devaney said.
"Agencies at a minimum will need to decide what actions they're willing to take to ensure that transparency and accountability aims of the Recovery Act aren't disregarded," he said.
Devaney recommended agencies refuse additional funding or demand unused stimulus funds be returned for noncompliance.
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Hopefully such timely release of data will become the norm regardless of administration. I’d rather have all the warts shown than wait for the scrubbed and ‘cleaned’ data to come out a year later in some obscure report.
Posted by: jhw539 | November 19, 2009, 12:56 pm 12:56 pm
No errors, could not list them as paybacks.
Posted by: Lizzie | November 19, 2009, 12:56 pm 12:56 pm
Tracking jobs is not easy. Like when the Republicans fudged the jobs figures before the 04 election…
Posted by: Matt | November 19, 2009, 12:57 pm 12:57 pm
How are things coming on the Dodd and Rangel investigations?
Posted by: jamescbuilder | November 19, 2009, 1:14 pm 1:14 pm
Hopefully such timely release of data will become the norm regardless of administration. I’d rather have all the warts shown than wait for the scrubbed and ‘cleaned’ data to come out a year later in some obscure report.
Posted by: jhw539 | Nov 19, 2009 12:56:04 PM
Good point. Devaney’s right in that it may be embarrassing but it’s more transparent than business as usual and transparency can be very messy. We can’t allow the very vocal critics to push us back toward scrubbed reports and some kind of aura of feigned ‘everything’s running perfectly.’
I also think Devaney’s recommendation–that agencies refuse additional funding or demand unused stimulus funds be returned for noncompliance– is practical and builds in some accountability.
Posted by: @Octavia | November 19, 2009, 1:23 pm 1:23 pm
What we are seeing, is how corrupt and unethical, government has become. That is because it is an organization governed by handouts to political cronies, for favors done.
The entire system needs to be updated, to prevent the wholesale perversion of government to organized crime.
This in the face of their criticisms of Karzai???? They make Karzai look like an angel.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | November 19, 2009, 1:46 pm 1:46 pm
Its not bad if its a dem controled government. Man just think if it was republican? Letterman would have Obama back and Oprah would give her 2 billions worth.
Posted by: Jim Rod | November 19, 2009, 2:57 pm 2:57 pm
“The most open and accessible administration in American history” unless you would criticize it, then you will be called cynical, a spreader of myths or far worse..
Posted by: Ed Taylor | November 19, 2009, 3:19 pm 3:19 pm
I don’t think it’s necessarily bad either. As long as you’re not an idiot and you are aware the government routinely LIES! :>)
Posted by: LongT | November 19, 2009, 4:46 pm 4:46 pm
Top 10 Obama excuses for the left; 10) Oh yeah! Well Bush lied too! 9) Hey, it’s tough to get these numbers right! 8) You neocons will always make something out of nothing to make Obama look bad. 7) He’s only been at it 9 months! What do you expect? 6) The president’s decision to send 40,000 troops to Afganistan has saved jobs! 5) If Bush didn’t cut taxes, we would have sufficient bailout money. 4) What solutions do you have? Come on I want to hear them. 3) Reagan had more than 10.4% unemployed. 2) Obama had nothing to do with this report! and the #1 Obama excuse? Who’s to say these saved jobs weren’t in states 51 thru 57?
Posted by: LongT | November 19, 2009, 4:57 pm 4:57 pm
Oh, and according to this story, bad data is better than no data. Yep!
Posted by: LongT | November 19, 2009, 5:03 pm 5:03 pm
Did it not make you wonder when you read that it only took 4.5 million to save those 17 jobs in one of those non exsistent areas, wow give me a quarter of a million and you can list me as a job saved [come on] They just forgot the first rule of the O.S.L. Dont put in print anything you might want to deny later.
Posted by: earl | November 19, 2009, 7:05 pm 7:05 pm
Whatever happened to voting for or against on its own merit — WITHOUT getting personal perks stuck in the proposed bill to buy your vote? That’s why we’re SO in debt as a nation! Congress needs to stick to a one issue bill — eliminating ALL earmarks… this goes for BOTH sides! No more you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Whatever happened to people voting according to their beliefs, morals and values – without having to be bought?
Besides, if it’s illegal to buy votes from registered voters, why shouldn’t it be illegal for any administration, congress, or politicial to buy congressional votes?
Posted by: DBinTX | November 19, 2009, 8:14 pm 8:14 pm
Mary Landrieu is just another leech on the system. She happens to be a very big leech though.
If this vote passes, I will be carefully watching and finding those that voted for it and actively campaign and donate against them.
Any Senator that votes for this should closely consider the consequences of their action. Not only will they be voted out, but the new conservative President in 2012 will have a mandate to recind this bill.
What is so disappointing is that there are affordable ways to implement health care reform and those were not even considered. Providing tax credits for low income people would be a way to do it. Creating a new bureacracy to administer a public option that may well undercut free market insurance companies is a wrong way to do this.
We are on course for deficit busting budgets and quality of health that will drop precipitously. Doctors will not want to work in this profession any more. The richest will still be ok, they will just pay cash and go to the head of the line.
Posted by: Bulldog | November 19, 2009, 10:56 pm 10:56 pm
Deception by this administration at its finest.
Posted by: TX_MBell | November 20, 2009, 12:58 am 12:58 am