Follow The Money

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately at Recovery.gov, the federal Web site that lists all the financial awards (contracts, grants and loans) authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).
More than $750 billion is being distributed nationwide by the federal government in the hopes of reinvigorating the economy, and a few billion dollars are expected to make their way to Maine. I wanted to see which organizations and people in Maine were getting some of the funds. As the saying goes: “Follow the money.”
Not surprisingly, state agencies are getting more of the stimulus funds than any other entity in Maine. They are spending the money on state programs and are redistributing much of it to not-for-profit entities and other governmental agencies such as towns, counties and tribes. Info about how the state is disbursing federal stimulus money is available at a state-run Web site about the stimulus program.
The feds are giving money directly to some of those same recipients, and through agencies such as Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture the federal government is loaning hundreds of millions of dollars more to businesses and others.
But the Recovery.gov Web site is not so easy to navigate, mainly because of the huge amount of information posted there. It has summaries and pie charts and maps, and in more obscure parts of the Web site has complete lists of financial awards, who is getting them, and which agency is giving them out. For the general public, it is not that accessible or transparent.
For example, the Web site doesn’t total up multiple awards that are going to any single recipient, it doesn’t specify who the “multiple recipients” are in Maine that are getting more than $184 million in USDA loans, and it doesn’t explain why some of the awards are listed for zero dollars or even for negative monetary amounts. And it presents the awards from two different perspectives – from the recipients and sub-recipients that are getting the funds, and from the agencies that are doling them out. Because of different reporting deadlines and procedures, the two perspectives don’t always add up to the same financial totals, which can be confusing.

So I’ve tried to simplify the presentation a little bit by copying some of the award data into my own list. I’ve included all the awards reported by federal agencies for coastal counties east of Bath, and a sprinkling of others from around the state for comparative purposes. But still, it represents only a fraction of the data available at Recovery.gov, totaling up only 286 awards out of nearly 1,300 granted directly by federal agencies to recipients in Maine.
I’m only relying on data reported by federal agencies because, well, it’s easier. The number of recipient reports at Recovery.gov has been about 5,000 (though that number seems to have been mysteriously reduced in recent days) and, having a job and a family, I just haven’t had that kind of time. Also, because recipients have to file reports only on a quarterly basis, while federal agencies tend to file reports every couple of weeks, the agency-reported data tends to be more up-to-date.
To make it relatively easier to digest than the data at the federal Web site, my list does not include awards going to any state agencies. It also does not include awards made by state agencies that are redirecting federal stimulus money to not-for-profits or other governmental agencies. The money has to go directly from the federal government to a recipient in order to make my list. Also, It does not include federally-funded contracts between the state and private firms, or the loans being made by USDA to “multiple recipients.”
It does add up totals going to single recipients, such as the $8.3 million the feds are giving directly to Jackson Lab as a result of ARRA. And, when called for, it resolves positive and negative award values going to an individual recipient so that you can see how much that individual recipient actually ends up with. Essentially, I hope it condenses some of the info available at the federal Web site and makes it easier to digest.
If you want to see the info for yourself at Recovery.gov, you can see it listed either under recipient reported data or agency reported data.
The Bangor Daily News published a story about some of the recipients and summarized some of the information posted at Recovery.gov. Another BDN story explains how the information is posted online. If you want to hear what some officials and recipients have to say about the program, you may want to read them.
I'll admit, it's all rather clunky. It’s not like reading a 19th-century novel or even a Harlequin romance. Nonetheless, it is illuminating and worthwhile to see where some of this public money is going.