Recovery.gov Chief Downplays Criticism
The chief watchdog overseeing stimulus funds on Friday dismissed criticism of the federal government's award of an $18 million contract to a Maryland-based company to overhaul tracking Web site Recovery.gov. Earl Devaney, the top cop at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said critics of the project's price tag have oversimplified the task of rebuilding "the government's largest Web site" in a matter of months, as well as the challenge of putting in place security controls and interconnectivity with a reporting system designed to handle an ocean of spending data.
The contract calls for the spending of $9.5 million by January 2010, with options that would boost the price tag to $18 million by 2014. Republicans circulated messages ridiculing that figure on Thursday, and good government groups bristled at a lack of details about the contents of the procurement deal. Smartronix, Inc. was picked by a GSA-led panel of experts, Devaney said, adding he did not personally participate in the selection process and had "never heard" of the firm before.
The new "Recovery.gov 2.0" Web site is slated for completion before stimulus recipients begin submitting quarterly spending reports on Oct. 10, 2009. Two other companies - Accenture and SRA - submitted bids for the high-profile overhaul. "I suspect this was such a risky venture that it scared lots of bidders away," Devaney said. Creating the infrastructure to process a huge volume of information is a daunting task, he added. "We're estimating about 200,000 to 400,000 recipients... and we're asking each one to talk to us about 44 pieces of data" related to stimulus funds," Devaney told reporters.
The new site will display data submitted by states, localities, and contract recipients via an online interface called FederalReporting.gov. The redesign calls for an interactive mapping application that users can manipulate to identify how stimulus money is being used in their own communities. Asked if the October deadline for the project's completion could slide, Devaney shook his head. "It's got to happen" by then, he said. -- Carrie Dann
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