Recovery Board Won't Fix Ham Goof

The independent board overseeing stimulus spending will not correct information on Recovery.gov that indicates the government is paying more than a million dollars for two pounds of frozen ham, a spokesman for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board said on Monday.

The blogosphere and WTOP reporters over the weekend and Monday morning joked that the government is apparently spending $1.2 million for "two pound frozen ham sliced," according to a contract description on Recovery.gov, the official stimulus-tracking site.

Vice President Joseph Biden's office on Monday called WTOP to clarify that the stimulus contract covers thousands of 2-pound packages of ham and dairy products for soup kitchens and food banks, according to the radio station.

But the board, which maintains Recovery.gov, said the Agriculture Department, which purchased the commodities, is responsible for getting the data right, not the board.

"We get this information from the agency and we're not going to correct their information," board spokesman Ed Pound said. "We're not going to go in and clarify these summaries. We're not going to fix it. I suppose if they send us a note to change it, we might."

In a written response to the media's initial jabs, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack elaborated that the stimulus bill provides $100 million to buy food for food pantries and other local organizations that assist the needy.

"The references to '2 pound frozen ham sliced' are to the sizes of the packaging. Press reports suggesting that the Recovery Act spent $1.191 million to buy '2 pounds of ham' are wrong. In fact, the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.191 million, at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound. In terms of the dairy purchase referenced, Agriculture's Farm Service Agency purchased 837,936 pounds of mozzarella cheese and 4,039,200 pounds of processed cheese. The canned pork purchase was 8,424,000 pounds at a cost of $16,784,000, or approximately $1.99 per pound," Vilsack stated.