26 Feb 2010 | 12:21 pm
Featured Stories: Pages
Description: What mistakes are being made by Recovery fund recipients in reporting and what actions have been taken to improve the reporting process and outcome are the focal points of a report by Inspectors General to the Recovery Board.
Page Content:
To promote accountability and transparency on the use of Recovery Act funds, the Recovery Board worked with federal Inspectors General to establish a multi-phased approach for reviewing agency oversight of recipient data. The first phase, conducted before the start of the first recipient reporting cycle in October, 2009, provided a snapshot of federal agencies’ data-review processes. The second phase, conducted after the first reporting period assessed the data-review processes at seven federal agencies. The IGs found:
Recipient Errors
Most of the errors by the recipients were in two categories: key information about the awards and the estimation of jobs. For example:
One recipient received an award of $3.5 million but only reported $367, 000.
The Department of Transportation noted that 1,200 jobs were erroneously listed under the Veterans Administration because the Iowa Department of Transportation, as a recipient, entered the wrong funding agency code.
Interior officials found that one recipient reported creating 10,000 jobs for a $5.25 million award which would mean that each employee would have been paid an annual salary of only $525.
Reasons for the Errors
The agencies identified several factors that contributed to the errors, including:
Recipients misinterpreted the guidance for how to report
Recipients had technical challenges in submitting data
Recipients entered incorrect codes or numbers, and
Human error.
Actions Taken to Improve Data Quality
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Recovery Board, and federal agencies all took significant actions after the first round of recipient reporting to improve data quality.
Actions taken by federal agencies included:
Developing and updating tools to electronically check for significant errors or anomalies in recipients’ reports
Updating FAQs, posted tip sheets and additional guidance to their Recovery sites, and
Contacting non-reporting and missing recipients to clarify reporting requirements.
OMB took the following actions:
Simplified the way jobs are calculated
Requires federal agencies to provide recipients with detailed award information, and
Required federal agencies to focus on errors in award amounts, jobs, award numbers, and recipients’ names.
The Recovery Board also took significant steps:
Adding hard edit checks to the reporting system that prevented recipients from submitting reports when information in specific fields was incorrect, and
Adding alerts that questioned the information the recipient was entering if it appeared to be inconsistent with other data.
The IGs concluded that the actions taken by the federal agencies, OMB, and the Board should go a long way to improving the data. Coordination and heightened vigilance will be critical to addressing continued concerns with the quality of data reported.
Read the full report, entitled "Recovery Act Data Quality: Errors in Recipient Reports Obscure Transparency," on the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board's Testimony and Reports page.
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17 Feb 2010 | 1:59 pm
Featured Stories: Pages
Description: The Office of Tax Analysis estimates that $99.1 billion in tax relief was made available by the end of December 2009.
Page Content:
The Office of Tax Analysis estimates that $99.1 billion in tax relief was made available by the end of December 2009. This relief comes in various forms including the Making Work Pay tax credit, COBRA Continuation Coverage Assistance, and tax incentives for businesses.
Cumulative
as of Mar 09
as of Jun 09
as of Sep 09
as of Dec 09
Making Work Pay
$2.3
$15.0
$26.9
$36.9
Other Individual Credits
$0.0
$8.5
$18.1
$21.6
Energy Incentives
$0.0
$0.4
$0.9
$2.2
Tax Incentives for Business
$0.1
$14.4
$25.4
$33.3
COBRA
$0.8
$4.9
$8.9
$3.7
Manufacturing & Economic Recovery, Infrastructure Refinancing, Other
$0.0
$0.0
$3.5
$1.2
Cumulative Totals
$3.2
$43.2
$83.8
$99.1
Data Source: Office of Tax Analysis Estimates
Note: December cumulative figures include adjustments to prior quarter's estimates
Note: Detail may not sum to totals due to independent rounding
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