More detailed stimulus reports could end up creating more jobs

The first-ever economic recovery reports from grant and loan recipients, which went online late Friday, could have a multiplier effect in the federal technology sector as companies analyze the results to glean business leads.

Recovery.gov, the federal Web site that tracks the results of the $787 billion economic stimulus program, transferred the new data on Friday into charts, interactive maps and downloadable files for public use. All the reports from grant, loan and contract awardees, collected between Oct. 1 and Oct. 20, account for roughly $36.6 billion received from the federal government between enactment of the Recovery Act on Feb. 17 and the end of the government's fiscal year on Sept. 30. The data indicates that 650,000 jobs were reported to have been created or saved, according to White House officials.

That data can help companies like Actuate, a software firm that helps federal agencies internally track stimulus programs. "The final grant and recipient data will allow us to pinpoint agencies that need assistance in managing the application of stimulus funding," said Jeff Perkins, a vice president and general manager at the company. Incorporating the real and timely data into its offering will make the tool more attractive to customers, he added.

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which maintains Recovery.gov, said the details revealed on Friday include the number of jobs created by the spending, the status of projects and how much money each received. On Oct. 15, Recovery.gov posted the names of companies that were awarded federal contracts under the program. Friday's reports were submitted by state and local governments and other grant and loan recipients.

Perkins said detailed downloads are crucial for product development, while the maps and other visualizations will assist Actuate in locating potential business. "The presentation of the data on Recovery.gov is a very good first level for our analysis purposes," he said.

The Oct. 15 release provoked a flood of complaints about blank data entries, limited search capabilities, incomprehensible project descriptions and disorganized downloads of data sets. Since then, the board has worked to enhance site features and recipients have strived to fix reporting errors. When the new reports posted Friday afternoon, visitors were able to download histories of the changes recipients have made since Oct. 10.

When the initial reports were released, watchdog groups were unhappy that they had to download multiple sets of data for each state to work with the statistics. Within a few days, the board responded by providing a bulk file of all federal contract results in all 50 states. On Friday, the board converted the files into additional formats that allow users to more easily manipulate the data, including XML and XLS. The statistics released earlier were only available in CSV format.

Phineas Baxandall, a senior tax analyst at U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said the machine-readable file formats will allow federal consultants and advocacy organizations like his to sort through the results "without hiring a data entry army to transpose a simple on-screen list into a usable format."

He added, "It's something that shows the administration really cares about transparency."

Users also voiced frustration this month that the site did not allow them to search by recipient name. The board made that function available on Friday, giving users the option of plugging in the name of a recipient to retrieve a list of every report containing that contractor's name.

The board reacted to criticism about a lack of meaningful context on Recovery.gov by adding state summaries, allowing visitors to view information about jobs created in each congressional district, to check the top recipients of stimulus aid and to read other analyses. Board officials said more than 500 new charts and tables were added on Friday.

But some advocacy groups working to open doors for minorities, low-income Americans and immigrants are concerned that the latest reports do not detail the jobs created by businesses and nonprofits that get money from cities. Federal reporting regulations do not require cities, states or primary recipients to document most of the indirect beneficiaries of stimulus money.

"If you have a small business, that is either a woman- or minority-owned business, what they are looking for is how they are going to be able to apply for subcontracts," said Juhu Thukral, director of law and advocacy at the Opportunity Agenda, which helps disadvantaged individuals find employment. "The data is not as clear in terms of who is getting a subcontract."