What is Recovery.gov?
On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law, creating the Recovery Board. A new website, Recovery.gov, was developed in conjunction with the Recovery Act with two specific missions: to provide unprecedented transparency about how Recovery funds are being used, and to increase accountability to guard against fraud, waste, and abuse.
Recovery.gov:
- Allows American taxpayers to see who received Recovery money, how the money is being spent, where it is being spent and how many jobs are being created by the projects
- Provides easy-to-understand, user-friendly graphs, charts, and maps
- Displays information on Recovery funding that states have received and offers highly detailed maps that plot Recovery projects
- Allows you to track the money that has gone to your county, congressional district, and zip code
- Provides information on federal contracts, grants, and loans; links to job information sites; and links to state Recovery sites
- Gives American citizens the tools they need to report potential fraud, waste, and abuse of Recovery funds
"You are going to get a chance when the recipient reports start flowing into Recovery.gov to look at the good, the bad and the ugly. You can also be certain that some of what we report will make some public officials unhappy. So be it! Some spending will make sense, some won’t, but it will all be there for you to see and analyze.” –Chairman Devaney, Chairman's Corner, July 16, 2009
Who runs Recovery.gov?
The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board oversees Recovery.gov. The Board consists of Chairman Earl E. Devaney and 12 federal Inspectors General.
“As the Inspector General at the Department of Interior and earlier in my career in other federal jobs, I had continually raised concerns about the lack of transparency and accountability in government. Now, I figured, I could be part of an historic exercise in transparency and accountability.” –Chairman Devaney, Chairman's Corner, July 16, 2009
The future of Recovery.gov
The data that initially appeared on the site was reported by federal agencies. Beginning in October 2009 - and quarterly from then on - that data will be augmented with information obtained from reports filed by recipients of Recovery funds. The reporting process, which is required by law, will provide a substantial amount of new data. In anticipation of that, Recovery.gov was redesigned and improved. The new version of Recovery.gov has many functions that will make the data more accessible and easier to understand, including a number of interactive maps and charts. The site will continue to evolve as more and more data becomes available.