Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Making the Power of the Internet Work for the Government
Earlier this year, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget requested comments on improving the Paperwork Reduction Act. The law requires agencies that wish to gather information from the public to first run their plans by OMB. In revisiting the law and its implementing regulations, OMB is focused on:
- Reducing current paperwork burdens, especially on small entities;
- Increasing the practical utility of information collected by the Federal Government;
- Ensuring accurate burden estimates; and
- Preventing unintended adverse consequences.
One of the unintended adverse consequences of the PRA arises in the Internet context, with what the government deems “surveys.” Government websites may not use surveys, even when compliance is strictly voluntary, without first receiving approval from OMB in a process that is lengthy and laborious.
Agencies interpret the term “survey” broadly, banning or restricting tools that would allow users to publicly rank or assess the usefulness of information. This restricts online rating systems like those commonly used by blogs, retailers, and so on. For example, imagine YouTube without its five-star rating system, or Slashdot without the ability to vote for stories.
We address the survey issue in a comment we submitted to OMB late last year.
The approval process for a survey can take half a year or more and requires multiple periods for public comment. The law intentionally creates disincentives for surveying the public.
The authors of the Paperwork Reduction Act never considered the ways that the Internet would allow citizens to directly communicate with one another on government websites through the use of voluntary surveys. Nor did they imagine that surveys could be as quick and easy as clicking yes or no. The law was intended to make the government more efficient and reduce the burden on citizens. 15 years into the Internet age, it’s time to take another look.
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OMB Guidance On Reporting Use of Funds for Stimulus
As our colleagues at OMB Watch blogged about yesterday, the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery, of which Sunlight is a member, released more analysis (PDF) they’ve conducted of the Office of Management and Budget’s recent guidance (PDF) on how Recovery Act recipients should report how they used the funds. CAR’s analysis in a nutshell: “While this guidance is a step in the right direction, there is still much room for improvement.”
So far, OMB has provided guidance only for recipients of grants and loans. OMB Watch says that separate guidance for federal contractors is coming soon. OMB has started to flesh out the details of the reporting process, which up until this point have largely been vague and unformed, OMB Watch reports.
CAR lists the good and the bad about OMB’s guidance. First the good:
(T)he guidance provides a useful framework for reporting to a central data collection service, called FederalReporting.gov. The design of the system is scalable to ultimately have all recipients of Recovery Act funds, including multi-tier sub-recipients, report directly. The guidance also creates a distinction between sub-recipients and vendors, which will prove useful. At the same time, OMB allows prime recipients to delegate direct reporting to sub-recipients – except for jobs data – which will likely cause confusion. There is also significant ambiguity about penalties for reporting non-compliance.
And the bad:
(There is) a lack of multi-tier reporting, job quality data, and performance data information; that jobs information is still being reported as undefined full-time equivalents (FTEs); that it is not clear if the information will be publically accessible with easy to use machine-readable tools; and that OMB requires the use of DUNS numbers and poorly considered identifiers for sub-recipients.
CAP’s full analysis is here (PDF).
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No Raw Data on Recovery.gov. Significant Failure
“A mixed review”…That’s the verdict the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery (CAR) has given the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) final guidance for reporting data on use of funds under the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Recovery Act. Sunlight’s own review is far less mixed. (CAR’s press release can be accessed here (PDF).)
Speaking for the coalition, Gary Bass, OMB Watch’s director and CAR’s co-chair, applauded the significant transparency steps OMB has taken in certain key respects. However, much data from the recipients of Recovery Act funds will not be collected or disclosed according the the new guidelines. “If the Recovery Act is to fulfill President Obama’s promise about taxpayers being able to go online and see how every dime is spent, then we need sub-recipients’ and sub-sub recipients’ data online, too,” Gary said. “This not only includes how the money was spent but also who benefited.” CAR believes its essential to collect data on race, class, gender, disability and other measures of equity in order to properly assess the success of the Recovery Act.
Also absent from the new instruction is a requirement to make raw data public. By not including raw data at Recovery.gov, transparency is dramatically reduced. Sunlight has argued strongly for raw data in machine readable formats as the starting point for Recovery.gov. This is a significant failure by the Administration to live up to its promise for full and complete disclosure. Significant failure.
CAR was formed to promote accountability for both federal government agencies doling out the trillions of dollars, for the states and for the companies that benefit from recovery funds. The best way to assure taxpayers that the funds are being used responsibly is to provide full transparency on stimulus spending and to make the details of the stimulus available in online, in real time.
The direction Reovery.gov is heading is not good enough.
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Agencies Begin to Post Recovery Lobbying Contacts
Some executive branch agencies are beginning to post lobbyist communications as required by the March 20th White House memorandum on the distribution of Recovery Act funds. So far, only eight out of the twenty-eight agencies listed as receiving recovery funds maintain a list of lobbyist contacts online. Some of the disclosures are far superior to others. While seeing these meetings posted online is encouraging overall, there are a few areas that could use improvement, most notably on structure, presentation, and centralization.
The agencies posting lobbyist contacts are as follows: Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Transportation (DOT), Federal Communication Commission (FCC), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Small Business Administration (SBA).
Of these agencies the most commendable are the FCC and DOE. The FCC provides, perhaps, the best example as the lobbyist contact page uses an easy to read chart that collects not just lobbyist contacts, but the docket number for the proceeding on which the FCC was contacted, the summary of the lobbyist contact, and links to any filing or presentation submitted along with a lobbyist contact. This goes above and beyond the requirements outlined in the March 20th memorandum. DOE contains many links to lobbyist communications and e-mails related to recovery act programs. These disclosures are well catalogued, but not as well as the FCC’s lobbyist communications. (Continue reading…)
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Sunlight as a Disinfectant
Here’s an example of what you can learn when you dig into federal recordsl…USA Today reports that the federal government, as part of the stimulus package, will be sending over $300 million to 61 housing agencies that auditors have been repeatedly cited for mishandling government aid. A review of the summaries the agencies are required to file with OMB revealed that the delinquent housing agencies were receiving stimulus funds. The stimulus package includes $4 billion to create jobs while fixing up rundown public housing. This constitutes a major increase over the $2.5 billion the federal government usually spends annually maintaining public housing.
Here’s the full list of the questionable housing agencies receiving stimulus funds.
The report says that federal authorities have promised to keep a close eye on how the agencies spend the money. Like me, I imagine you would normally find this statement not all that reassuring.
This may be a case where more transparency not only exposes misconduct, but should prevent it from occurring in the first place. If the public is watchdogging the federal watchdogs, they should be more motivated to monitor the receiving agencies. Sound complicated? Just think ‘transparency as the best disinfectant.’
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White House: Where is the CTO?
On his second day in office, President Barack Obama issued a sweeping memorandum on transparency in government, setting out an ambitious to-do list for the newly created position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This person was to be responsible initially — along with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services Administration — to come up with a concrete list of recommendations to implement the principles set out in the memorandum, namely, that government should be transparent, participatory, and collaborative, and to do it within 120 days.
We’re now at day 21 and counting , and the Obama Administration has yet to appoint that CTO — a position he promised to create during his campaign.
So I’m worried: the clock is ticking to prepare that critically important memo. And besides the ticking clock there have been several examples of the White House falling down on its promises to be transparent, particularly complying with its promise to post all legislation online for 5 days before consideration. (The history of posting bills online to allow for public comment has been either non-existent or spotty to date.) Getting that CTO “online” seems more and more important every day. To walk the walk, Obama needs the CTO.
So what’s going on? Inquiring minds want to know.
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Questions Swirl Around White House IT Responsibilities
Christopher Dorobek, managing editor of Federal News Radio and author of DorobekInsider.com, is reporting that they’ve confirmed that President Obama is set to name the immensely talented Vivek Kundra, Washington, D.C., government’s CTO, as the next administrator of e-government and information technology within the Office of Management and Budget. Good news indeed.
But a whole lot of questions remain as to how the whole picture will be painted.
For instance, there are currently three White House IT-related positions, with a fourth being the proposed CTO. The administration has done little to explain what the various IT offices have responsibility over. Dorobek writes that he sees four pockets of government IT expertise: A Congressional Research Service report, published last month, illustrates how “murky” things remain and how the four key positions on this arena — the e-government administrator at OMB; OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and the proposed Obama CTO will divide up responsibilities and work together.
Dorobek says: “Frankly, one of the problems has been that there hasn’t been enough of a coordinated, strategic approach to technology, information technology and data, and this seems like an opportune time to make all those lines clear.”
Dorobek points to NextGov’s Jill Atoro as suggesting that Virginia’s secretary of technology, Aneesh Chopra , might be Obama’s CTO pick.
Staying tuned here.
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Novak: Fear of Offending Congressional Appropriators Scuttled OMB Earmark Database
Robert Novak’s latest column repeats, more or less, the information we heard originally from Mark Tapscott — that fear of offending congressional appropriators led the White House to derail OMB’s release of the earmark database OMB announced on January 25, 2007. We’ve been hearing a very different tale from the Office of Management and Budget, one which I think is rather plausible, as to why they haven’t released the whole database. Appropriators are a relatively limited pool of members–it may well be worth the effort to start calling each of their offices and asking their member to go on the record, either supporting or opposing, OMB’s effort to provide greater transparency to the federal budget through its disclosure of earmarks, to determine whether they were offended. That still might not answer the question of why OMB delayed the database to everyone’s satisfaction, but it would let appropriators know that we’re watching them too…
More on this later…
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FedSpending.org Now Features 2006 Data
FedSpending.org, the go-to site for all government spending information, has now added some 2006 data–the full set isn’t available from the Feds just yet–plus some new and improved features for keeping track of how Washington manages our money. Congratulations to all at OMB Watch on the upgrades and updates. I’m appending the press release below, but what I think might be the coolest new feature is the summary data, which provides a really nice snapshot–here’s Lockheed Martin, and here’s Halliburton. Compare the trend boxes.
Though we’re two months into 2007, the federal government has yet to release all of the 2006 data–I think it’s generally the Department of Defense that lags behind (though in fairness, they award more contracts than anyone else).
It’s also worth noting that the Office of Management and Budget, who are building official database of government spending required by the Coburn Obama bill, have launched FedSpending.gov, which right now is soliciting suggestions, comments and ideas for the federal site. Nice to see that they link to OMB Watch’s excellent effort. I’m going to make a suggestion of my own, and will post it here when I’m finished.
OMB Watch Launches Upgraded FedSpending.org Website
WASHINGTON, Feb. 22, 2007—OMB Watch today launched the first in a series of upgrades to its popular FedSpending.org website (http://www.fedspending.org). The site updates make FedSpending.org more comprehensive, more searchable, and more customizable. Journalists, researchers, and the public, among others, will benefit from the upgrades.
The upgraded FedSpending.org site includes the following improvements:
• Updated Data – FY 2005 now contains all four quarters of federal assistance data; the most recent publicly available data for FY 2006 has been added for both contracts and assistance (but the data for both remains incomplete at this time); many problems in older data have been corrected.
• Summary View – This level of detail has been designed to provide a better overview of contractors, recipients, congressional districts, states, and agencies, as well as other data categories, such as recipient type, assistance type, grant programs, products and services contracted for, and extent of competition. The summary view also includes a new Trend bar chart to quickly compare changes over time. The view is brand new for contracts and significantly upgraded for assistance.
• XML Output – The site now provides an XML format for data which will allow advanced users and programmers to design their own interfaces to pull and display FedSpending.org data.
• More Searchable – Improvements in page titles and implementation of sitemaps protocol should make it easier to find FedSpending.org data through online search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.).
• New Home Tab – The side bar navigation now includes a separate “folder tab” for the home page of the website, making it easier for visitors to navigate among the different sections of the website.OMB Watch welcomes feedback on the upgrades and ideas for future improvements at http://www.fedspending.org/contact.php. The organization intends to launch two additional upgrades to the FedSpending.org website in 2007. The first is scheduled for June/July and the second is scheduled for October/November. Among the improvements that OMB Watch hopes to include are a mapping function, inflation adjustments, and the ability to combine federal spending data with other census data.
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