Stimulus spending can be tough to track

When President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden spoke in March 2009 at a White House conference on implementation of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, the vice president stressed the need to spend the stimulus money as "transparently and accountably" as possible.

To that end, an independent board - the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board - was established to "foster greater accountability and transparency" in how stimulus funds were used.

The board runs a website, Recovery.gov, to aid the public in tracking how stimulus money is spent and to report fraud and waste. But the board can't tell federal agencies issuing contracts with stimulus money what to report, said spokesman Edward Pound.

Pound said all prime and sub-recipients of stimulus money are to report to a nonpublic website the information about their contracts, which are then reviewed by agencies issuing the contracts. After the review, the information is posted to Recovery. gov.

But transparency has its limits.

Pound said that even if the agencies suggest that contractors report more information, only the contractors that received stimulus money can change reports.

An analysis of contractors working on General Services Administration stimulus-funded projects in Philadelphia found that some reported much more information than others.

For example, Keating Construction Co. LLC and S.J. Thomas Co. Inc., the two largest prime recipients of awards for renovating the U.S. Courthouse in Center City and the adjacent federal office building, did not identify any of their subcontractors on their most recent reports filed with Recovery.gov on Jan. 31.

After the Daily News inquired about subcontractors and the value of their contracts, a representative for Keating provided the information and said he would update his next filing for Recovery.gov.

After a Freedom of Information Act request, GSA disclosed the names of Thomas' four subcontractors, who were awarded $1 million. A representative for Thomas said that there was some confusion about everything that was supposed to be reported and that they weren't sure exactly how to do it.