Font ResizeWashington » Under questioning by a Utah congressman, the government watchdog over stimulus spending said Thursday that he does not have a master list of who received Recovery Act funds nor a roster of who has not reported back how that money has been spent.
Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said that while each of the 27 agencies that doled out the funds has its own list of recipients, he doesn't have an overall tally yet.
Devaney said that some errors have been corrected on the data submitted by tens of thousands of recipients but that his team is still checking over the list to make sure everyone complies with guidelines on reporting.
"They're in the process right now -- [to check if] each and every one of the recipients of that list reported" back on the funds," Devaney said during a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "And I hope to get that result soon."
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said the fact that the recovery board doesn't know how many people haven't reported back puts all of the information into question.
"It seems like a simple, basic accounting process to understand," Chaffetz said. "What it highlights is we don't know what we don't know. And that to me is a very scary proposition moving forward."
Chaffetz also pointed to an issue that his Utah GOP colleague Rob Bishop raised earlier
The Tribune previously reported that while the data were wrongly listed on the Web site, the money was spent in Salt Lake City -- in Bishop's district -- according to the contract data.
The recovery board said late Wednesday night that it was fixing errors in some reports that led to so-called phantom districts.
Devaney told Chaffetz that while the board is trying to ensure accurate data, the information is coming from recipients who sometimes make mistakes.
"Congressman, well, first and foremost, the recipients in Utah put the wrong congressional district in," Devaney said. "They're the ones that entered that data."
A study by the Government Accountability Office released Thursday showed wide problems with the tracking of stimulus data. The report said that nearly 4,000 reports showed money not yet received, but supposedly creating or saving more than 50,000 jobs.
While 90 percent of recipients filed reports as required, "questions remain" about the other 10 percent, the GAO said, and recipients used wildly different methods to calculate a job saved or created.
