Recovery Act
Recipient Reported Jobs Data Provide Some Insight into Use of Recovery Act Funding, but Data Quality and Reporting Issues Need Attention Gao ID: GAO-10-224T November 19, 2009This testimony discusses the report being issued today on the first set of recipient reports made available in October 2009 in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's section 1512 requirement. On October 30, Recovery.gov (the federal Web site on Recovery Act spending) reported that more than 100,000 recipients had reported hundreds of thousands of jobs created or retained. GAO is required to comment quarterly on the estimates of jobs created or retained as reported by direct recipients of Recovery Act funding from federal agencies. In the first quarterly GAO report, being released today, we address the following issues: (1) the extent to which recipients were able to fulfill their reporting requirements and the processes in place to help ensure recipient reporting data quality and (2) how macroeconomic data and methods, and the recipient reports, can be used to help gauge the employment effects of the Recovery Act. Because the recipient reporting effort will be an ongoing process of cumulative reporting, our review represents a snapshot in time. At this juncture, given the national scale of the recipient reporting exercise and the limited time frames in which it was implemented, the ability of the reporting mechanism to handle the volume of data from a wide variety of recipients represents a solid first step in moving toward more transparency and accountability for federal funds; however, there is a range of significant reporting and quality issues that need to be addressed. Consequently, our report contains several recommendations to improve data quality that Office of Management and Budget (OMB) staff generally agreed to implement. We will continue to review the processes that federal agencies and recipients have in place to ensure the future completeness and accuracy of data reported. Finally, our report notes that because the recipient reports cover about one-third of Recovery Act funds, both the data in those reports and other macroeconomic data and methods together can offer a more complete view of the overall employment impact of the Recovery Act.
As detailed in our report, our analysis and fieldwork indicate there are significant issues to be addressed in reporting, data quality, and consistent application of OMB guidance in several areas. Many entries merit further attention due to an unexpected or atypical data value or relationship between data. As part of our review, we examined the relationship between recipient reports showing the presence or absence of any full-time equivalent (FTE) counts with the presence or absence of funding amounts shown in either or both data fields for "amount of Recovery Act funds received" and "amount of Recovery Act funds expended." Forty-four percent of the prime recipient reports showed an FTE value. However,we identified 3,978 prime recipient reports where FTEs were reported but no dollar amount was reported in the data fields for amount of Recovery Act funds received and amount of Recovery Act funds expended. These records account for 58,386 of the total 640,329 FTEs reported. While OMB estimates that more than 90 percent of recipients reported, questions remain about the other 10 percent. Less than 1 percent of the records were marked as having undergone review by the prime recipient. The small percentage reviewed by the prime recipients themselves during the OMB review time frame warrants further examination. While it may be the case that the recipients' data quality review efforts prior to initial submission of their reports were seen as not needing further revision during the review timeframe, it may also be indicative of problems with the process of noting and recording when and how the prime recipient reviews occur and the setting of the review flag. In addition, the report record data included a flag as to whether a correction was initiated. Overall, slightly more than a quarter of the reports were marked as having undergone a correction during the period of review. In its guidance to recipients for estimating employment effects, OMB instructed recipients to report solely the direct employment effects as "jobs created or retained" as a single number. Problems with the interpretation of this guidance or the calculation of FTEs were one of the most significant problems we found. Jobs created or retained expressed in FTEs raised questions and concerns for some recipients. One source of inconsistency was variation in the period of performance used to calculate FTEs, which occurred in both the highway and education programs we examined. While there were problems of inconsistent interpretation of the guidance, the reporting process went relatively well for highway projects. DOT had an established procedure for reporting prior to enactment of the Recovery Act. As our report shows, in the cases of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which do not have this prior reporting experience, we found more problems. State and federal officials are examining identified issues and have stated their intention to deal with them.
GAO-10-224T, Recovery Act: Recipient Reported Jobs Data Provide Some Insight into Use of Recovery Act Funding, but Data Quality and Reporting Issues Need Attention
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Testimony:
Before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of
Representatives:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery:
Expected at 10:00 a.m. EST:
Thursday, November 19, 2009:
Recovery Act:
Recipient Reported Jobs Data Provide Some Insight into Use of Recovery
Act Funding, but Data Quality and Reporting Issues Need Attention:
Statement of Gene L. Dodaro:
Acting Comptroller General of the United States:
GAO-10-224T:
[End of section]
November 19, 2009:
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I appreciate the opportunity to be here to discuss the report we are
issuing today on the first set of recipient reports made available in
October 2009 in response to the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act's section 1512 requirement. On October 30, Recovery.gov (the
federal Web site on Recovery Act spending) reported that more than
100,000 recipients had reported hundreds of thousands of jobs created
or retained. GAO is required to comment quarterly on the estimates of
jobs created or retained as reported by direct recipients of Recovery
Act funding from federal agencies.
In the first quarterly GAO report, being released today, we address the
following issues: (1) the extent to which recipients were able to
fulfill their reporting requirements and the processes in place to help
ensure recipient reporting data quality and (2) how macroeconomic data
and methods, and the recipient reports, can be used to help gauge the
employment effects of the Recovery Act.[Footnote 1] Because the
recipient reporting effort will be an ongoing process of cumulative
reporting, our review represents a snapshot in time.
At this juncture, given the national scale of the recipient reporting
exercise and the limited time frames in which it was implemented, the
ability of the reporting mechanism to handle the volume of data from a
wide variety of recipients represents a solid first step in moving
toward more transparency and accountability for federal funds; however,
there is a range of significant reporting and quality issues that need
to be addressed. Consequently, our report contains several
recommendations to improve data quality that Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) staff generally agreed to implement. We will continue to
review the processes that federal agencies and recipients have in place
to ensure the future completeness and accuracy of data reported.
Finally, our report notes that because the recipient reports cover
about one-third of Recovery Act funds, both the data in those reports
and other macroeconomic data and methods together can offer a more
complete view of the overall employment impact of the Recovery Act.
Background:
In December 2007, the United States entered what has turned out to be
the deepest recession since the end of World War II. In responding to
this downturn, the Recovery Act employs a combination of tax relief and
government spending. About one-third of the funds provided by the act
are for tax relief to individuals and businesses; one-third is in the
form of temporary increases in entitlement programs to aid people
directly affected by the recession and provide some fiscal relief to
states; and one-third falls into the category of grants, loans, and
contracts.
As of September 30, 2009, approximately $173 billion, or about 22
percent, of the $787 billion provided by the Recovery Act had been paid
out by the federal government. Nonfederal recipients of Recovery Act-
funded grants, contracts, and loans are required to submit reports with
information on each project or activity, including the amount and use
of funds and an estimate of jobs created or retained. Of the $173
billion paid out, about $47 billion--a little more than 25 percent--is
covered by this recipient report requirement. Neither individuals nor
recipients receiving funds through entitlement programs, such as
Medicaid, or through tax programs are required to report. In addition,
the required reports cover direct jobs created or retained as a result
of Recovery Act funding; they do not include the employment impact on
materials suppliers (indirect jobs) or on the local community (induced
jobs), as shown in figure 1.
Figure 1: Fiscal Year 2009 Recovery Act Funds Paid Out and Recipient
Reporting Coverage:
[Refer to PDF for image: pie-chart and illustration]
Recovery Act funds paid out, end of fiscal year 2009 (in billions):
Entitlements: $63.7;
Tax relief: $62.5;
Contracts, grants, and loans: $47;
Total: $173.
Potential employment effects of Recovery Act contracts, grants and
loans:
Contracts, grants, and loans:
Recipient reporting coverage: Direct.
Source: GAO.
[End of figure]
To implement the recipient reporting data requirements, OMB has worked
with the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (Recovery
Board)[Footnote 2] to deploy a nationwide data collection system at
[hyperlink, http://www.federalreporting.gov], while the data reported
by recipients are available to the public for viewing and downloading
on [hyperlink, http://www.recovery.gov] (Recovery.gov). OMB's June 22,
2009, guidance[Footnote 3] on recipient reporting also includes a
requirement for data quality review. Prime recipients have been
assigned the ultimate responsibility for data quality checks and the
final submission of the data. Because this is a cumulative reporting
process, additional corrections can take place on a quarterly basis.
The first of the required recipient reports cover cumulative activity
since the Recovery Act's passage in February 2009 through the quarter
ending September 30, 2009. As shown in figure 2, OMB specified time
frames for different stages in the reporting process: for this current
report, prime recipients and delegated subrecipients were to prepare
and enter their information from October 1 to October 10; prime
recipients were able to review the data for completeness and accuracy
from October 11 to October 21, and a federal agency review period began
October 22. The final recipient reporting data for the first round of
reports were first made available on October 30.
Figure 2: Recipient Reporting Time Frame:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustration]
No less than 35 days prior to the end of the quarter:
* Prime and subrecipient registration.
1-10 days after end of quarter (Recipient report adjustments possible):
* Prime recipients and delegated subrecipients enter draft reporting
data;
* Initial submission.
11-21 days after end of quarter (Recipient report adjustments possible)
(Agency "view only"):
* Prime recipients review data submitted by subrecipients;
* Prime recipients and subrecipients make corrections.
22-29 days after end of quarter (Recipient report adjustments possible)
(Agency comment period):
* Agency review of data submitted;
* Prime recipients and subrecipients make corrections.
30 days after end of quarter:
* Recipients reports published on Recovery.gov.
90 days after end of quarter:
* Next quarterly reporting cycle begins”updates reflected cumulatively.
Source: OMB.
[End of figure]
To assess the reporting process and data quality efforts, GAO performed
an initial set of edit checks and basic analyses on the final recipient
report data that first became available at Recovery.gov on October 30,
2009. We built on information collected at the state, local, and
program level as part of our bimonthly reviews of selected states' and
localities' uses of Recovery Act funds. These bimonthly reviews focus
on Recovery Act implementation in 16 states and the District of
Columbia, which contain about 65 percent of the U.S. population and are
estimated to receive collectively about two-thirds of the
intergovernmental federal assistance funds available through the
Recovery Act.
To understand state quality review and reporting procedures, we visited
the 16 selected states and the District of Columbia during late
September and October 2009 and discussed with prime recipients projects
associated with 50 percent of the total funds reimbursed as of
September 4, 2009, for that state in the Federal-Aid Highway Program
administered by the Department of Transportation (DOT). Prior to the
start of the reporting period on October 1, we obtained information on
prime recipients' plans for the jobs data collection process. After the
October 10 data reporting period, we went back to see if prime
recipients had followed their own plans and subsequently talked with at
least two subrecipients to gauge their reactions to the reporting
process and assess the documentation they were required to submit. We
gathered and examined issues raised by recipients in these
jurisdictions regarding reporting and data quality and interviewed
recipients on their experiences using the Web site reporting mechanism.
During the interviews, we looked at state plans for managing, tracking,
and reporting on Recovery Act funds and activities. In a similar way,
we examined a nonjudgmental sample of Department of Education
(Education) Recovery Act projects at the prime and subrecipient level.
We also collected information from selected transit agencies and
housing authorities as part of our bimonthly Recovery Act reviews.
To gain insight into and understanding of quality review at the federal
level, we interviewed federal agency officials who have responsibility
for ensuring a reasonable degree of quality across their program's
recipient reports. We assessed the reports from the Inspectors General
(IG) on Recovery Act data quality reviews from 15 agencies. We are also
continuing to monitor and follow up on some of the major reporting
issues identified in the media and by other observers. For example, a
number of press articles have discussed concerns with the jobs
reporting done by Head Start grantees. According to a Health and Human
Services (HHS) Recovery Act official, HHS is working with OMB to
clarify the reporting policy as it applies to Head Start grantees. We
will be reviewing these efforts as they move forward.
For our discussion of how macroeconomic data and methods and recipient
reporting together can be used to assess the employment effects of the
Recovery Act, we analyzed economic and fiscal data using standard
economic principles and reviewed the economic literature on the effect
of monetary and fiscal policies for stimulating the economy. We also
reviewed the guidance that OMB developed for Recovery Act recipients to
follow in estimating the effect of funding activities on employment,
reviewed reports that the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) issued on
the macroeconomic effects of the Recovery Act, and interviewed
officials from CEA, OMB, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Our work was conducted in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform
the audits to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives. We believe that the evidence we obtained provides a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives.
Initial Observations on Recipient Reporting Data Identify Areas for
Further Review:
As detailed in our report, our analysis and fieldwork indicate there
are significant issues to be addressed in reporting, data quality, and
consistent application of OMB guidance in several areas.
* Erroneous or questionable data entries. Many entries merit further
attention due to an unexpected or atypical data value or relationship
between data.
* Quality review by federal agencies and prime recipients.
* Coverage: While OMB estimates that more than 90 percent of recipients
reported, questions remain about the other 10 percent.
* Review: Over three quarters of the prime reports were marked as
having undergone review by a federal agency, while less than 1 percent
were marked as having undergone review by the prime recipient:
* Issues in the calculation of full-time equivalents (FTE). Different
interpretations of OMB guidance compromise the ability to aggregate the
data.
Erroneous or Questionable Data Entries:
We performed an initial set of edit checks and basic analyses on the
recipient report data available for download from Recovery.gov on
October 30. As part of our review, we examined the relationship between
recipient reports showing the presence or absence of any full-time
equivalent (FTE) counts with the presence or absence of funding amounts
shown in either or both data fields for "amount of Recovery Act funds
received" and "amount of Recovery Act funds expended." Forty-four
percent of the prime recipient reports showed an FTE value. However, as
shown in table 1, we identified 3,978 prime recipient reports where
FTEs were reported but no dollar amount was reported in the data fields
for amount of Recovery Act funds received and amount of Recovery Act
funds expended. These records account for 58,386 of the total 640,329
FTEs reported. There were also 9,247 reports that showed no FTEs but
did show some funding amount in either or both of the funds received or
expended data fields. The total value of funds reported in the
expenditure field on these reports was $965 million. Those recipient
reports showing FTEs but no funds and funds but no FTEs constitute a
set of records that merits closer examination to understand the basis
for these patterns of reporting.
Table 1: Count of Prime Recipient Reports by Presence or Absence of
FTEs and Recovery Act Funds Received or Expended:
Recovery Act funds: Received or expended funds reported[A];
Reports with FTEs: 21,280; (84%);
Reports without FTEs: 9,247; (29%).
Recovery Act funds: No received or expended funds reported;
Reports with FTEs: 3,978; (16%);
Reports without FTEs: 22,481[B]; (71%).
Recovery Act funds: Total;
Reports with FTEs: 25,258; (100%);
Reports without FTEs: 31,728; (100%).
Source: GAO analysis of Recovery.gov data.
[A] Prime recipient reports showing a nonzero dollar amount in either
or both Recovery Act funds received or expended data fields.
[B] As might be expected, 71 percent of those prime recipient reports
that did not show any FTEs also showed no dollar amount in the data
fields for amount of Recovery Act funds received and amount expended.
[End of table]
Our review also identified a number of cases in which other anomalies
suggest a need for review: discrepancies between award amounts and the
amounts reported as received, implausible amounts, or misidentification
of awarding agencies. While these occurred in a relatively small number
of cases, they indicate the need for further data quality efforts.
Quality Review by Federal Agencies or Prime Recipients:
OMB guidance assigns responsibility for data quality to the prime
recipient and provides for federal agency review. A correction could be
initiated by either the prime recipient or the reviewing agency. OMB
requires that federal agencies perform limited data quality reviews of
recipient data to identify material omissions and significant reporting
errors and notify the recipients of the need to make appropriate and
timely changes to erroneous reports. The prime recipient report records
we analyzed included data on whether the prime recipient and the agency
reviewed the record in the data quality review time frames. Over three
quarters of the prime recipient reports were marked as having undergone
federal agency review.
Less than 1 percent of the records were marked as having undergone
review by the prime recipient. The small percentage reviewed by the
prime recipients themselves during the OMB review time frame warrants
further examination. While it may be the case that the recipients' data
quality review efforts prior to initial submission of their reports
were seen as not needing further revision during the review timeframe,
it may also be indicative of problems with the process of noting and
recording when and how the prime recipient reviews occur and the
setting of the review flag. In addition, the report record data
included a flag as to whether a correction was initiated. Overall,
slightly more than a quarter of the reports were marked as having
undergone a correction during the period of review.
Issues in Calculation of Full-Time Equivalents:
In its guidance to recipients for estimating employment effects, OMB
instructed recipients to report solely the direct employment effects as
"jobs created or retained" as a single number. Recipients are not
expected to report on the employment impact on materials suppliers
("indirect" jobs) or on the local community ("induced" jobs). OMB
guidance stated that "the number of jobs should be expressed as 'full-
time equivalents (FTEs),' which is calculated as total hours worked in
jobs created or retained divided by the number of hours in a full-time
schedule, as defined by the recipient." Consequently, the recipients
are expected to report the amount of labor hired or not fired as result
of having received Recovery Act funds. It should be noted that one FTE
does not necessarily equate to the job of one person. Organizations may
choose to increase the hours of existing employees, for example, which
can certainly be said to increase employment but not necessarily be an
additional job in the sense of adding a person to the payroll.
Problems with the interpretation of this guidance or the calculation of
FTEs were one of the most significant problems we found. Jobs created
or retained expressed in FTEs raised questions and concerns for some
recipients. While reporting employment effects as FTEs should allow for
the aggregation of different types of jobs--part-time, full-time, or
temporary--and different employment periods, if the calculations are
not consistent, the ability to aggregate the data is compromised.
One source of inconsistency was variation in the period of performance
used to calculate FTEs, which occurred in both the highway and
education programs we examined. For example, in the case of federal
highways projects, some have been ongoing for six months, while others
started in September 2009. In attempting to address the unique nature
of each project, DOT's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) faced the
issue of whether to report FTE data based on the length of time to
complete the entire project (project period of performance) versus a
standard period of performance, such as a calendar quarter, across all
projects. According to FHWA guidance, which was permitted by OMB, FTEs
reported for each highway project are expressed as an average monthly
FTE. Because FTEs are calculated by dividing hours worked by hours that
represent a full-time schedule, a standard period of performance is
important if numbers are to be added across programs.
As an illustration, take a situation in which one project employed 10
people full time for 1 month, another project employed 10 people full
time for 2 months, and a third project employed 10 people full time for
3 months. FHWA's use of average monthly FTE would result in FTEs being
overstated compared either with using OMB's June 22 guidance or to
standardizing the reports for one quarter. Under FHWA's approach, 30
FTEs would be reported (10 for each of the three projects); on the
other hand, using a standardized measure, 20 FTEs would be reported (3-
1/3 for the first project, 6-2/3 for the second project, and 10 for the
third). Conversely, if a project starts later than the beginning of the
reporting period, applying OMB's June 22 guidance, which requires
reporting of FTEs on a cumulative basis, could result in reporting
fewer FTEs than would be the case under a standardized reporting period
approach. In either case, failure to standardize on a consistent basis
prevents meaningful comparison or aggregation of FTE data.
This was also an issue for education programs. For example, in
California, two higher education systems calculated FTE differently. In
the case of one, they chose to use a 2-month period as the basis for
the FTE performance period. The other chose to use a year as the basis
for the FTE. The result is almost a three-to-one difference in the
number of FTEs reported for each university system in the first
reporting period. Although Education provides alternative methods for
calculating an FTE, in neither case does the guidance explicitly state
the period of performance of the FTE.
OMB's decision to convert jobs into FTEs provides a consistent lens to
view the amount of labor being funded by the Recovery Act, provided
each recipient uses a standard time frame in calculating the FTE. The
current OMB guidance, however, creates a situation where, because there
is no standard starting or ending point, an FTE provides an estimate
for the life of the project. Without normalizing the FTE, aggregate
numbers should not be considered, and the issue of a standard period of
performance is magnified when looking across programs and across
states.
Recipients were also confused about counting a job created or retained
even though they knew the number of hours worked that were paid for
with Recovery Act funds. While OMB's guidance explains that in applying
the FTE calculation for measuring the number of jobs created or
retained recipients will need the total number of hours worked that are
funded by the Recovery Act, it could emphasize this relationship more
thoroughly throughout its guidance.
While there were problems of inconsistent interpretation of the
guidance, the reporting process went relatively well for highway
projects. DOT had an established procedure for reporting prior to
enactment of the Recovery Act. As our report shows, in the cases of
Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which do
not have this prior reporting experience, we found more problems. State
and federal officials are examining identified issues and have stated
their intention to deal with them.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
In our report, we make a number of recommendations to OMB to improve
the consistency of FTE data collected and reported. OMB should continue
to work with federal agencies to increase recipient understanding of
the reporting requirements and application of the guidance.
Specifically, OMB should:
* clarify the definition and standardize the period of measurement for
FTEs and work with federal agencies to align this guidance with OMB's
guidance and across agencies;
* given its reporting approach, consider being more explicit that "jobs
created or retained" are to be reported as hours worked and paid for
with Recovery Act funds; and:
* continue working with federal agencies and encourage them to provide
or improve program-specific guidance to assist recipients, especially
as it applies to the full-time equivalent calculation for individual
programs.
Given some of the issues that arose in our review of the reporting
process and data, we also recommend that OMB should work with the
Recovery Board and federal agencies to re-examine review and quality
assurance processes, procedures, and requirements in light of
experiences and identified issues with this round of recipient
reporting and consider whether additional modifications need to be made
and if additional guidance is warranted.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In commenting on a draft of our report, OMB staff told us that OMB
generally accepts the report's recommendations. It has undertaken a
lessons-learned process for the first round of recipient reporting and
will generally address the report's recommendations through that
process.
As recipient reporting moves forward, we will continue to review the
processes that federal agencies and recipients have in place to ensure
the completeness and accuracy of data, including reviewing a sample of
recipient reports across various Recovery Act programs to assure the
quality of the reported information. As existing recipients become more
familiar with the reporting system and requirements, these issues may
become less significant; however, communication and training efforts
will need to be maintained and in some cases expanded as new recipients
of Recovery Act funding enter the system. In addition to our oversight
responsibilities specified in the Recovery Act, we are also reviewing
how several federal agencies collect information and provide it to the
public for selected Recovery Act programs, including any issues with
the information's usefulness. Our subsequent reports will also discuss
actions taken on the recommendations in this report and will provide
additional recommendations, as appropriate.
Recipient Reports and Economic Methods Together Can Offer Insights into
Employment Impact:
While the recipient reports provide a real-time window on the use and
results of Recovery Act spending, the data will represent only a
portion of the employment effect, even after data quality issues are
addressed. A fuller picture of the employment effect would include not
only the direct jobs reported but also the indirect and induced
employment gains resulting from government spending. In addition, the
entitlement spending and tax benefits included in the Recovery Act also
create employment. Therefore, both the data reported by recipients and
other macroeconomic data and methods are helpful in gauging the overall
employment effects of the stimulus.
Economists will use statistical models to estimate a range of potential
effects of the stimulus program on the economy. In general, the
estimates are based on assumptions about the behavior of consumers,
business owners, workers, and state and local governments.
Neither the recipients nor analysts can identify with certainty the
impact of the Recovery Act because of the inability to compare the
observed outcome with the unobserved, counterfactual scenario (in which
the stimulus does not take place). At the level of the national
economy, models can be used to simulate the counterfactual, as CEA and
others have done. At smaller scales, comparable models of economic
behavior either do not exist or cover only a very small portion of all
the activity in the macroeconomy.
Our report discusses a number of the issues that are likely to affect
the impact of the Recovery Act, including the potential effect of
different types of stimulus. We also discuss state and sectoral
employment trends and that the impact of the Recovery Act will vary
across states. The employment effects of Recovery Act funds are likely
to vary with the condition of a state's labor market, as measured by
its unemployment rate. Labor markets in every state weakened over the
course of the recession, but the degree to which this has occurred
varies widely across states.
Figure 3 illustrates this--it shows the geographic distribution of the
magnitude of the recession's impact on unemployment as measured by the
percentage change in unemployment between December 2007 and September
2009.
Figure 3: State Unemployment Rate Growth during Recession (Percentage
Increase):
[Refer to PDF for image: U.S. map and accompanying data]
States in the bottom third of the unemployment rate growth
distribution:
Alaska: 33.3%;
Arkansas: 44.9%;
Connecticut: 71.4%;
Colorado: 70.7%;
Iowa: 76.3%;
Kansas: 68.3%;
Maine: 80.9%;
Minnesota: 52.1%;
Mississippi: 50.8%;
Missouri: 79.2%;
Montana: 76.3%;
Nebraska: 81.4%;
North Dakota: 35.5%;
Ohio: 74.1%;
South Dakota: 77.8%;
Vermont: 67.5%;
Wisconsin: 84.4%.
States in the middle third of the unemployment rate growth
distribution:
District of Columbia: 96.6%;
Georgia: 98%;
Illinois: 87.5%;
Kentucky: 98.2%;
Louisiana: 89.7%;
Maryland: 10%;
Massachusetts: 106.7%;
New Hampshire: 105.7%;
New York: 93.5%;
Oklahoma: 86.1%;
Pennsylvania: 91.3%;
South Carolina: 100%;
Tennessee: 98.1%;
Texas: 86.4%;
Utah: 106.7%;
Virginia: 103%;
Washington: 102.2%.
States in the top third of the unemployment rate growth distribution:
Alabama: 181.6%;
Arizona: 111.6%;
California: 106.8%;
Delaware: 118.4%.
Florida: 129.2%;
Hawaii: 132.3%;
Idaho: 114.4%;
Indiana: 113.3%;
Michigan: 109.6%;
Nevada: 155.8%;
New Jersey: 117.8%;
New Mexico: 113.9%;
North Carolina: 116%;
Oregon: 117%;
Rhode Island: 116.7%;
West Virginia: 107%;
Wyoming: 134.5%.
Source: Copyright © Corel Corp. All rights reserved (map); GAO analysis
of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
[End of figure]
The impact of funds allocated to state and local governments will also
likely vary with states' fiscal conditions.
GAO's Review of Allegations of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Submitted to
FraudNet:
Finally, let me provide the committee with an update on allegations of
fraud, waste, and abuse made to our FraudNet site. As of November 13,
2009, FraudNet has received 106 Recovery Act-related allegations that
were considered credible enough to warrant further review. We referred
33 allegations to the appropriate agency Inspectors General for further
review and investigation. Our Forensic Audits and Special
Investigations unit is actively pursuing 8 allegations, which include
wasteful and improper spending; conflicts of interest; and grant,
contract, and identity fraud. Another 9 are pending further review by
our criminal investigators, and 15 were referred to other GAO teams for
consideration in their ongoing work. We will continue to monitor these
referrals and will inform the committee when outstanding allegations
are resolved. The remaining 41 allegations were found not to address
waste, fraud, or abuse; lacked specificity; were not Recovery Act-
related; or reflected only a disagreement with how Recovery Act funds
are being disbursed. We consider these allegations to be resolved and
no further investigation is necessary.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, this concludes my statement.
I would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] GAO, Recovery Act: Recipient Reported Jobs Data Provide Some
Insight into Use of Recovery Act Funding, but Data Quality and
Reporting Issues Need Attention, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-223] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19,
2009). This report as well as all of our Recovery Act related products
is available at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/recovery].
[2] The Recovery Act created the Recovery Accountability and
Transparency Board, which is composed of 12 Inspectors General from
various federal agencies, who serve with a chairman of the board. The
board issues quarterly and annual reports on Recovery Act activities to
Congress and the President. The board is also to issue "flash reports"
under the statute.
[3] OMB Memorandum, M-09-21, Implementing Guidance for the Reports on
Use of Funds Pursuant to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009 (June 22, 2009).
[End of section]
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