We’ve written about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and its reporting requirements before.  The GAO published a six-month assessment of the how the Federal government would oversee usage of ARRA funds, which we reported here.  It’s worth noting that recipients of ARRA funds needed to register in August 2009, and to begin to report their expenditure data effective October 2009.  Accurate reporting was a condition of providing the funds; contract clauses make registration and reporting mandatory.

Recently, reports have begun to emerge that suggests ARRA fund recipients are not doing a good job of accurate reporting.  For example, this article at FederalTimes.com states that “Nearly 12 percent of fourth quarter 2009 reports from recipients of stimulus funds needed to be corrected.”  Roughly 19,000 of the more than 160,000 recipient reports input in the fourth quarter of 2009 needed correction, according to the article—which was an improvement from the results of the third quarter, where “nearly 21 percent” of recipient reports needed correction.  Unsurprisingly, the largest number of corrections was in the number of jobs created by the stimulus funds.  Corrections are not a major problem since, as the article noted, “Recipients are allowed to correct their mistakes online, through www.FederalReporting.gov , the portal that collects stimulus data.”

Another recent article on FederalTimes.com says the big problem isn’t with inaccurate data; it’s with those recipients who didn’t report anything at all.  In the second reporting period (the fourth quarter of 2009), the article reports that “More than 1,000 recipients — state and local governments and private companies — failed to report spending data … as required by law. Those organizations received more than $583 million in stimulus funds.” 

The article reports that 389 recipients have never reported anything at all in either of the first two reporting periods.

It is interesting to note that the current law does not impose any penalties for failing to report expenditure data, though many have promised to remedy that oversight.  In the meantime, according to the article (which quotes RATB Chair Earl Devaney), “those recipients should really be embarrassed.  …  Federal agencies now need to take whatever administrative action they can against those who flout the law so cavalierly.”

We’re guessing some of those recipients didn’t know or understand the reporting requirements (though they would have if they had read the articles posted on this site!).  However, we wouldn’t bet against a few entities “taking the money and running”—which is why we have auditors and law enforcement officials. And courts of law.  There’s a simple word to describe such entities:  “defendant”.