President Obama''s staff made a lot of false promises of keeping transparency in the stimulus Program. This has proven fatal as State and Federal agencies are sluggish and patchy in disclosing to the public the first allotments from the grant of $100 billion in education funding.
U.S Department of Education has issued funding to states and local school districts to the tune of $145 million. Still many State “recovery” websites do not have specific information on the capital that was allotted to their region, but only show general information on the stimulus program.
The federal government’s chief online portal Recovery.gov on the stimulus is lacking in providing any information on the cash that has been distributed to the states by the federal agencies and the majority of Education Department expenditure statistics are hidden deep in Excel spreadsheets.
Education Department representative Sandra Abrevaya was quoted in Education Week magazine as saying “There’s always a trade-off between immediacy and accuracy and we don’t want to put things up so early that we end up having to revise them.” People have really high hopes on transparency of information from President Barack Obama’s team on stimulus program. The transparency segment of recovery.gov has posted a statement that reads “The President has made it clear that every taxpayer dollar spent on our economic recovery must be subject to unprecedented levels of transparency and accountability”.
In a dialogue last month with Education Week, the U.S Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made a statement “There’s never been such transparency,” he said. “We’ll be tracking state by state and district by district how money is being spent.”
Initial Steps
The state and federal officials are still trying to comprehend the information on details of money being spent where and how. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act just being less than 3 months old, the federal officials have decided on reporting a detailed report on www.recovery.gov to trace funds. The Education Department is also strategizing to rise the information level on the website.
As per the Government supervisory body; the state, local government and school districts have lots of room for improvement in sequence to building a more comprehensive, user friendly, and detailed reports for tracking the federal money.
Marthena Cowart director of communications for the Washington-based Project onGovernment Oversight stated in Education Week “We’re cautiously optimistic, and we’ll have to wait and see but we don’t want to be a Pollyanna about this.” Its also heartening that the transparency in information is placed high.
The Education Department is certain that they will not be disclosing all the information related to the stimulus program, for instance officials have said that they will not open information to the public regarding the applications that states submit for their shares of the $48.5 billion in state stabilization funding offered this year, only the accepted applications will be made public, after any changes have been made.
The verdict has come in-spite of the department’s own ruling on the stabilization fund, which state : “From the date that a state first submits its application for funding, … the department will make information publicly available regarding a state’s implementation of the program.”
Even though other federal agencies have posted on their Websites links related to stimulus communications between lobbyists and departments-vital to President Obama March 20 directive still the education department has yet to place any such communication as of press time.
Undoubtedly it is the federal auditor’s duty is to make sure that there is a fair and transparent flow of information. Under the stimulus law, it is the Government Accountability Office and the investigative arm of Congress, which is required to report a bimonthly review on how the money is being spent by the particular states and localities. Further, it has also identified 16 states to follow over the next several years. On April 23rd a report by GAO was published which raised an alarm on the capability of states and local districts to accurately audit stimulus funds and guarantee transparency in tight financial plans.
A $14 million grant was released for the Education Department’s office of inspector general in stimulus funding for training its staff and planning more audits and inspections. Catherine Grant , the department’s public-affairs liaison commented that a review is being planned by the office at the state and local level on issues like data quality, use of funds, and cash management.
As per the reporting needs and the load of transparency it is the states responsibility, which are charged with releasing quarterly reports on stimulus expenditure, beginning Oct 10. In view of the fact that federal guidelines only apply to the primary recipients of the funding which is generally the states and there a some extra reporting needs for school districts.
Rules of Simulus Reporting :
The agencies receiving or distributing shares less than or equal to $100 billion in support for education have to follow the guidelines laid down by the Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
The must follow guidelines laid by the Federal agencies (including the U.S Department of Education)
·Have multiple of there own recovery.gov website for providing public information related to stimulus program.
·Account various media interaction such as press events.
·Place funding notifications when funds becomes accessible to states or local agencies.
·Weekly reports of the funds which are consumed and also the one which has been officially released but have not been spent.
·Weekly report on chief activities which are of importance to higher ranking government dignitaries, Congress and the public.
·Presenting and planning a map on how the department will improvise and administer stimulus fund and a more detailed oriented planning on program-specific funds, which in return has to be accepted by the Office of management and Budget by May 15.
States Guidelines :
·Quarterly reports to federal officials giving details on the funds spent including the project title and description and an evaluation of the program’s growth and an number of employment created.
·Annual reports on the spending of state fiscal-stabilization money, how much employment was generated or unemployment saved and much growth was stimulated in key education areas such as reducing teacher-quality inequities.
Guidelines for School and other local agencies:
·Maintaining records on the expenditures incurred which can be further required by the states; federal official prepare to spread out a reporting plan consisting of information about district stimulus expenditures and also about the contractors or subcontractors engaged.
·Per-pupil school wise details on education expenditures from state and local sources for Title I money.
·Complete all the reporting needs under Title I and unique education programs.
Sources: U.S. Office of Management and Budget; U.S.
Department of Education; American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act
Surfacing the Procedures
All the states have developed its own version of a recovery Web sites with most of them demonstrating only to basic stimulus information, like linking to the laws, estimating on the funding a state is suppose to get, and press releases on the benefits of the stimulus law. Many sites however point towards a more detailed oriented information in near future.
Some states like Maryland, Virginia, Oregon, and Washington state however share a rather detailed, county wide, stimulus spending information on their hosted Web sites by various eye catching and interactive simulations.
Connecticut State is an exception in providing online details o f stimulus-related contacts between lobbyists and executive-branch officials. There is so much of transparency in there records that they also show that on April 1st & 2nd a member of Connecticut Education Association sent an e-mail to the official of the state department of education’s legal division requesting that the funding should be first used for saving the jobs.
The Connecticut site also host stimulus project ideaforwarded to the governor’s office, such as requiring $20,000 for walk-in refrigerators for the middle school in Bridgeport, as there is a provision for funding the food related service equipments.
One of the focus areas of the state departments of education is to share the information related to stimulus program among the various officials at the school district levels.
David Conarty-Marin director of communication for the Maine Department of Education quoted “Our primary goal has been early and frequent communication with the field, but we’re very cognizant we need to do the transparency piece as well. All the money that is spent is going to end up on a map on our Web site somehow.”
Jaci Holmes , the federal-state legislative liaison for the Maine department said “We don’t want to just hear about ‘professional development, we want to get below what’s the title to ... what are specific types of programs being funded, and what do they expect as measurable outcomes.”
Arkansas education departments are working towards improvising submission of real-time data on spending their stimulus money and on students’ progress reports. The next level would be to making the information public online said one of the official Julie Johnson Thompson, the department’s director of communications. All this is being planned to get executed with the help of technology expert-IBM.
“We’re so intent on making sure this money is spent well, and transparently,” she said.
District leaders in some states however look forward too little in the way of extra reporting as they are use to the federal reporting needs for programs such as special education.
The district superintendents of Illinois is not expecting any major results by receiving the additional money of $48.5 billion for school districts as they plan to use it for paying the staff member and utilizing to clear the bills said superintendent of the 12,700-student Township High School
District 214 in Arlington Heights, Ill, David Schuler.
For keeping track of the expenditures many districts will have to set up separate accounting codes
Mr.Schuler quoted “I wouldn’t say it’s a nightmare, but it’s a logistical challenge, We’re not really going to see any extra money, so it’s really just more paperwork.”
Blog 
SBC Fulfillment
