Surprise: Recovery.gov Has a Credibility Problem

by Kristina Rasmussen

Recovery.gov has a vast and challenging mandate: “to allow taxpayers to see precisely what entities receive [stimulus] money in addition to how and where the money is spent.” To its credit, Recovery.gov offers a fascinating look into how government goes about spending $787 billion.

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However, the website is troubled with inaccuracies, and these problems are undermining its credibility. Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Dave Obey agrees: “The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.”

Given that stimulus award recipients are responsible for providing much of the information you see on Recovery.gov, it’s reasonable to expect some errors in the reporting process. Alas, some of the information seems to come out of thin air.

Phantom Congressional Districts.

Picking up on a story from ABC News about stimulus jobs created in phantom congressional districts, I found jobs/awards reported for the following Illinois “districts”: 0, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 28th, 33rd, 34th, 42nd, 44th, 53rd, and 59th. Or as Stephen Colbert would say, “the fightin’ 59th.” Too bad Colbert couldn’t “better know these districts,” because they don’t exist. Notes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “the federal government is attributing about $6.5 million in stimulus spending to non-existent congressional districts in Illinois.”

Counting Irregularities.

Recovery.gov touts state-by-state totals for jobs “created or saved.” Some of the counts are little more than guesses. For example, the Illinois Institute of Technology was awarded $97,900 to “purchase a high performance computer cluster” and related software. One job was counted created/saved; the related entry surmised: “I think the vendor of the computer equipment can retain about one job for this amount of purchase.” That’s totally unsubstantiated. Still, it was added to Illinois’s statewide jobs tally.

For some projects, the descriptive “job creation” information does not match the numerical “number of jobs” entry. One entry for Head Start in Illinois noted they would use $169,279 to “hire 2 additional staff and increase compensation of staff through a COLA to improve overall quality of program.” Yet under “number of jobs” they listed 63.65 positions, which counted toward the statewide jobs total.

Misallocation of Job Counts.

Recovery.gov breaks down the jobs created/saved by the stimulus by congressional district. For Illinois, the vast majority of jobs were supposedly created/saved in the 18th congressional district. With 16,996 jobs created/saved in the 18th district (the next largest jobs total is 3,444 in the 7th district). A closer look at the details shows that 14,233 of those central Illinois jobs came from the Illinois State Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, which is located in state capital of Springfield. The State Office counted education jobs saved across the state, yet all were allocated to the 18th district. If the designers of Recovery.gov hope to sway future congressional votes with the district-by-district job numbers, they’re need to present credible information.

Where are the Private Sector Jobs?

You’ll remember that back in January 2009 President Barack Obama promised that 90 percent of the jobs saved or created by the stimulus would be in the private sector. So far, that’s not the case. If the 90 percent promise held up, 22,003 of the 24,448 Illinois jobs would be in the private sector. But looking at the data, the big job saver is a government entity, otherwise known as “Illinois, State of.” Some 14,233 jobs were saved in public education. The “Chicago Transit Authority” is another big job saver and/or creator, accounting for 2,071 jobs. Seen in this light, the stimulus was more of a state and local government bailout than a private-sector engine starter.

But are these state government numbers even trustworthy? The Chicago Tribune’s Watchdog took a closer look at the education job claims, and they found that “those statistics, compiled initially by the Illinois State Board of Education, appear riddled with anomalies that raise questions about their validity.” Some schools were credited with saving more jobs than are on payroll. Authorities are now revising the numbers.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of government spending transparency at the federal, state, and local level. Then-Senator Barack Obama deserves props for working with Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R) to pass federal transparency legislation into law in 2006. Even so, the Obama Administration needs to do a better job of getting the numbers right if they don’t want to damage the nascent concept of government transparency.


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Posted Nov 18th 2009 at 12:54 pm in Congress, Obama, Politics, State Politics, Technology | 79 Comments