Updated: Recovery.gov Contract

Update: Late Friday night, GSA released the Smartronix contract documents. They are now publicly available here on Recovery.gov .

The government is behind in posting the potential $18 million contract for the redesign of Recovery.gov because of the work involved to ensure the disabled can access it, said officials at the General Services Administration and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.

GSA had planned to release during the week of July 20 a redacted version of the contract for the board to publish on the official stimulus-monitoring Web site.

"The only thing that has delayed this is getting the documents 508-compliant," said board spokesman Ed Pound, referring to the law that requires agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. "We are not going to put information up on our Web site that is not accessible to the blind and disabled."

The board had input into the redacting process, but GSA is managing the contracting decisions, he added. On July 8, the agency awarded the Recovery.gov contract to Hollywood, Md.-based Smartronix, a technology services outfit.

"We are trying to get this up as quickly as possible," while following protocols to redact the contract with the vendor and ensure the digital document is accessible, GSA spokeswoman Sahar Wali said on Friday. Those procedures involve, among other things, adding certain tags and verbal descriptions of graphics to ensure assistive technologies, such as Braille displays, can read the pages of the contract.

Pound acknowledged that there are redactions in the version that will be released, but said he does not have concerns about what has been excised. "This company has business sensitive information that doesn't need to be disclosed and there are exemptions for that," he said.

After government transparency advocates pushed the board and GSA to disclose details of the deal, GSA said it would work with the vendor to edit proprietary information and post the agreement. The project entails innovating, maintaining, backing-up and securing the site by Oct. 10, when spending reports are due from fund recipients. The first upgrade is scheduled to launch on Aug. 27.

The makeover will cost $9.5 million through January 2010 and up to $18 million if all options are exercised.