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March 17, 2010

GAO report: federal agencies not fully complying with 2006 law

By CREW Staff

A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examines whether federal agencies have complied with a 2006 law that was intended to increase transparency in the contracts, grants and other awards made by these agencies. The GAO's verdict?

The excerpts below from the GAO report provide a good overview of what has happened -- or not happened. (Note: The term "awards" applies to all grants, loans and other disseminated funds.):

While USAspending.gov currently contains required fiscal year 2008 information ... 9 agencies did not report a total of 15 awards.

... Without a more effective approach to ensuring that all agencies report applicable awards, the utility of USAspending.gov will be impaired by gaps in the required information.

In a random sample of 100 awards, GAO identified numerous inconsistencies between USAspending.gov data and records provided by awarding agencies.

In other words, the federal government is providing more information than it used to provide, but agencies have yet to fulfill the intentions of the 2006 law. The Obama administration needs to make this compliance a priority.