Recovery Act: One Year Later, States' and Localities' Uses of Funds and Opportunities to Strengthen Accountability

On January 27, 2011, the Secretary of Transportation sent a report to Congress that addressed each reporting element we recommended. DOT reported that 29 states and the District of Columbia met their planned level of expenditure and 21 states did not. It also summarized reasons states did not meet the certified levels, such as a reduction in dedicated revenues for transportation or a state legislature approving a lower-than-expected level of transportation funding in the state budget. Finally, DOT's report provided its perspectives on lessons learned from the process, including identifying barriers to effectively implementing the maintenance-of-effort requirement. For example, it noted that the lack of clarity around statutory definitions regarding what constituted "state funding" and the substantial decreases in state dedicated transportation revenues were barriers to states producing an accurate certification and meeting the certified level.

In response to our recommendation, HUD developed a management plan for administration of Recovery Act funds, including the need for an additional 11 FTEs to carry out Recovery Act responsibilities. In July 2010, HUD also provided us with its management plan for the Public Housing Capital Fund program. The plan summarized the key activities HUD undertakes to monitor and facilitate the use of these funds by program area, including rule and policy development, planning, program awards, program management, technical assistance, and reporting. The plan also included the specific activities, tasks, and resources used for each of these existing program areas, identifying approximately 91 existing FTEs in its headquarters and field offices to support these activities. According to HUD's management plan, HUD's current staffing level is sufficient to manage its existing Capital Fund program, but the agency could more efficiently utilize its current resources. As a result, HUD plans to realign current staff to focus on its core missions including Recovery Act responsibilities.

HUD implemented our recommendation. HUD provided us with an email dated March 26, 2010, that it had sent to public housing agencies instructing them not to use the jobs-counting calculator originally posted on HUD's Recovery Act Web site in October 2009. The email also provided a link to the revised jobs-counting calculator on HUD's Web site. HUD provided us with subsequent emails to housing agencies that reminded them of the new jobs-counting calculator.

Because of the action taken by the Department of Education issuing clarifying guidance on August 26, 2010, we consider this recommendation to be closed as implemented.

In response to our recommendation, Education issued clarifying guidance on August 26, 2010, that explained that the length of a full-time contract (i.e., 10 or 12 months) should not affect FTE calculations.

On March 22, 2010, the Office of Management and Budget issued updated guidance which highlighted the steps federal agencies must take to review data quality of recipient reports during the new continuous review period. The guidance specified that federal agencies must, at a minimum, conduct a final review of the data upon the close of the continuous corrections period, given that all records are open and subject to edits and corrections during that time. Previously, recipient reported data was locked and no longer correctable once the reporting period for that quarter closed and the information was published on Recovery.gov. Now, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board reflects corrected data on Recovery.gov approximately every two weeks, allowing federal agencies time to review and provide feedback in the interim.