transparency
National Report Shows Texas Needs to Improve Its Reporting on Economic Stimulus Spending
For more information contact Bee Moorhead, Executive Director, Texas Impact, (512) 472 – 3903 or bee@texasimpact.org OR Michelle Lee, Good Jobs First, (202) 232-1616 ext. 210 or mlee@goodjobsfirst.org
A new study of official state websites focusing on the federal stimulus program finds that Texas is among the states that need to improve the quality of their online reporting. “Texas usually excels in online open government, so it’s surprising and disappointing that we are failing on a project of this size and importance,” said Bee Moorhead, director of the interfaith advocacy network Texas Impact.
The Texas finding comes from Show Us the Stimulus, a report released today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center based in Washington, DC. The full text of the report as well as online state-specific appendices can be found on the Good Jobs First website.
“Many states are failing to support President Obama’s vow that the Recovery Act would be carried out with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability, said Good Jobs First executive director Greg LeRoy, “and they are making it more difficult to measure the success of ARRA in mitigating the effects of the recession.”
The Good Jobs First study examines the quality and quantity of disclosure by state websites on the many ways ARRA funding is flowing through state governments to communities, organizations and individuals. Looking at both spending programs and individual projects, it evaluates the general ARRA websites that all states have created as well as the reporting specifically on highway projects. Based on ten different criteria, each state (and the District of Columbia) is graded on a scale of 0 to 100.
“We tried to be as generous as possible, but most state ARRA sites simply do not measure up,” said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of the report. “The challenge is not insurmountable,” he added. “States such as Maryland, Colorado and Washington are doing a very good job in conveying vital information about stimulus spending and are leading the way in establishing best practices for state ARRA disclosure.”
Six states score 50 or better for their main ARRA site: Maryland (80), Colorado (68), Washington (63), West Virginia (60), New York (53) and Pennsylvania (50). Thirteen states score 50 or better for their highway reporting, led by Maryland (75), Washington (73) and Nebraska (60). The average score for the ARRA websites is 28, and for highway reporting 38.
Texas receives a score of 15 for its ARRA website, putting it in a tie for 34th place among the states. It does better in ARRA highway reporting, getting a score of 40 (a tie for 22nd place). “These federal funds represent a great opportunity for Texas, especially in the energy and transportation sectors, and a lack of transparency will make it impossible for Texans to be certain that we are getting the maximum benefit,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, the Texas director of the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Most states that score poorly for their main ARRA website do better in highway reporting, but there are five states that score very low for both: Alabama, District of Columbia, Illinois, Kentucky and Vermont. Low-scoring states are ones that provide few specifics on how ARRA money is being used in the state. Illinois, which gets a zero in both categories, has figures only at a national level and nothing on how much is being spent in the state.
Here are highlights of the state scoring for specific criteria:
• Most states do a good job of providing information on the categories of ARRA spending. Forty-two states display the data for broad categories (energy, housing, transportation, etc.), and 37 of these also provide details on specific programs.
• Geographic breakdowns are less common than data on program areas. Eighteen states provide the information, and in only three cases (Maine, New Mexico and Virginia) does the website show the information both for each county individually and for all counties side-by-side for comparison purposes.
• Few states juxtapose the geographic distribution of stimulus spending with patterns of economic distress, such as county unemployment rates or foreclosure levels.
• Apart from county dollar totals, state residents may be interested to know where individual ARRA projects such as the repaving of a road or repair of a school building are taking place. Eleven states provide project maps on their main ARRA website, while 30 provide maps as part of their ARRA highway project reporting.
• Only 10 states provide contractor names and dollar amounts on their ARRA website. The results are better in highway reporting, where 29 states have both contractor names and dollar figures.
• The paramount objective of the Recovery Act is to address mounting unemployment through job creation and retention. Yet only three states—Colorado, Maryland and Washington—currently provide any employment data for individual projects on their main ARRA site. Eighteen states do so in their highway reporting.
Based on our findings, Good Jobs First offers the following recommendations:
• Put a summary of key information about ARRA spending at the top of the home page of the site. A clear bar graph, pie chart or table showing the main spending flows goes a long way in helping the user begin to see what the Recovery Act is all about. There should be clear links to pages with more details about the various programs.
• Provide a map or a table showing how overall ARRA spending and the amounts in key categories are being distributed around the state.
• Along with information on spending streams, provide information on individual projects being funded by those programs. Where possible, display the location of the projects on maps. Interactive displays that allow one to drill down for more details are better than static PDF maps.
• For projects carried out by private contractors, be open about the contract award process and the identity of the companies that win bidding competitions. Post the bids and the details, including the full text, of the contract awarded to the winner.
• While the federal government’s Council of Economic Advisers is responsible for estimating the overall employment impacts of ARRA and the Recovery.gov website will report jobs data on some (but not all) individual projects, state ARRA sites should also make an effort to include employment data in their project reporting.
• ARRA sites should provide readily accessible information about the ways that individuals, organizations and businesses can apply for stimulus grants and contracts.
“The use of ARRA websites to inform the public is more than a matter of providing a service to state residents,” Mattera said. “The way in which the information is presented helps shape public attitudes toward the stimulus and could play a significant role in debates over future government interventions in the economy.”
The production of this report is part of the ongoing work of Good Jobs First on transparency and accountability issues relating to the Recovery Act. Good Jobs First co-chairs the Coalition for An Accountable Recovery (www.coalitionforanaccountablerecovery.org), which works on these issues at the federal level, and we coordinate States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery, or STAR Coalition (www.accountablerecovery.org), which works with state-level organizations.
Recovery Act Accountability Bill Moves Forward
[Update: To see video of the discussion and passage of HB 2942, click here.]
[Update II: For more media coverage on the bill, click here.]
[Update III: HB 2942 unanimously passed its final reading in the House and will now go to the Senate.]
With Texas already getting approximately $16 billion in federal stimulus funds—not to mention the opportunity for state, local, and private entities to access much more that that amount in competitive grants contained in the Recovery Act—the House took an essential step towards ensuring that Texas implements its share of those funds in transformative and transparent ways. HB 2942 passed its second reading in the House on Thursday night, and it will be ready to be finally passed and sent along to the Senate on Friday.
A bipartisan group of legislators—Representatives Dunnam, Crownover, Gattis, Turner, and Coleman—came together to create the bill, which would make some permanent and temporary changes to the way the state spends and tracks its money. Among the provisions included in the bill is the creation of the Recovery Act Accountability Board, which will define performance measures, create public-private collaboration, and help agencies look for opportunities to combine funding and functions related to the Recovery Act, among other duties.
Earlier in the afternoon, the House also passed Representative Pitts' HB 4583, which would establish a separate fund to hold all funds related to the federal Recovery Act. Also on Thursday, the Senate passed their own version of the Recovery Act fund in Senator Duncan's SB 2567.
Texas Impact has been working for measures like these since before the federal law was even passed in mid-February. As these bills and the process of implementing Texas' share of these funds move forward, Texas Impact will continue to be involved and keep its members updated.
Tracking the Texas Stimulus
As Texas Impact has reported, Texas has been lagging behind in many respects as far as the measures it has taken to effectively and transparently put its ARRA dollars to use. Yet some recent developments could potentially change the situation for the better. The first came during the House debate over the state budget for the next biennium, as we pointed out last week. Representatives filed a number of amendments directly related to the federal stimulus dollars, including one by Representative Sylvester Turner that creates specific performance measures and reporting requirements for every state agency that receives ARRA funds.
Now, in another piece of positive ARRA-implementation news, the Comptroller of Public Accounts has launched a new section on its website that allows Texans to see how money is being spent, where they can look for grants and contracting opportunities, and what impact the ARRA is expected to have on the state. Texas Impact has been calling for this and other measures to be taken since Texas first learned it would be getting billions of dollars from the federal government, so this is an encouraging development.
