States Brace for Upcoming Stimulus Deadline

Posted Originally to Bright Side of Government

By Kristin Bockius, State & Local Government Social Media Marketing Manager

Federal budget watchdogs and other observers know that agencies historically have reported the performance results for their spending and programs at the end of each fiscal year as required by the Government Performance and Results Act. In light of the administration’s renewed emphasis on transparency, agencies are now expected to continually provide updated performance data to the public, and this trend is filtering down to state and local governments as well.

By Oct. 10, states must file official reports on how they have spent their stimulus dollars with the federal government, and the state reports will then be made public on Recovery.gov, the White House’s official stimulus Web site. The reports are supposed to include who is receiving each state’s stimulus money, how much money has been allocated, specific projects being undertaken, the status of those projects, and whether those projects created or saved jobs (see this PDF link for the official OMB memo).

According to The Hill, the problem is that state officials are rushing to meet the deadline, and they say that much of the data will not be complete in time. The most obvious obstacle for states is the short amount of time available to report on their spending, even though the original July 10 deadline was pushed back by three months to give states more time to comply.

Finding themselves with strenuous reporting burdens and with the deadline just weeks away, many states have turned to Microsoft’s Stimulus360 to help them monitor progress in real time, submit needed reports, and provide intuitive views of the data for a variety of audiences as they work to show results. Best of all, states can implement it quickly and easily because the solution is based on Microsoft technology which many states already use.

For more information about Stimulus360, please visit this site. To discuss issues related to the stimulus, please visit Voices for Economic Recovery. Start a conversation, add your voice and vote on the voices that make the most sense.