stimulus reporting by jennifer lafleur
DESCRIPTION
Jennifer LaFleur presents at the Reynolds Center's Washington, D.C. workshop, "What's Next for the Economy in Your Town." For more information, please visit http://businessjournalism.org.TRANSCRIPT
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Investigating the stimulus
Jennifer LaFleur, ProPublica
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The stimulus touches nearly every beat
• Housing• Transportation• Community programs• Unemployment• Technology
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Getting started
• What money is going to your community?– Education– Transportation– Weatherization
• Evaluating how it’s being spent– How is the money distributed?– Who is getting contracts?– What’s being fixed?
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Some key federal sites• The bill: Breakdown of what was supposed to be
funded and rules of funding. (part A)• Recovery.gov – Main site for administration on
recovery – good for getting information on overall plan
• USAspending.gov – More on federal spending• Federal Procurement Data System – federal
contracts• Federal Agency recovery sites – Google the
agency name and “recovery”
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Local information
• Check with state agencies to get information on projects
• Check with your local city or county to get information on projects there.
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Sorting it all out• Every type of funding takes a
different path to the user.– FEDSTATECITYPROJECT– FEDRECIPIENT
• Find out what reports an agency must file – every type of project will require some report being filed
• You won’t know every final recipient. Data is only being released to two levels.
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Sorting it all out
Not every dollar is reported on recovery.gov- Some programs are not required to report- Small awards don’t have to be reported- Direct awards, such as SBA loans aren’t reported
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Sorting it all out
List of programs that require recipients to file 1512 (jobs) reports: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_fy2009/m09-21-supp1.pdf
Get much of detailed data on usaspending.gov
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ProPublica’s tools
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ProPublica’s tools
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ProPublica’s tools
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ProPublica’s tools
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ProPublica’s tools
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ProPublica’s tools
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ProPublica’s tools
• Stimulus FAQ s• Stimulus tool kit -- Basics on getting
information on the stimulus
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Backgrounding contractors
• Debarred federal contractors: https://www.epls.gov/epls/search.do
• Federal Audit Clearinghouse• OSHA: www.osha.gov• Check to see if your state has a debarred
contractors list• Check for your state’s database of complaints
against firms• Check your state auditor’s reports (ex: TX)
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Checking on the ground
• Go to the job site and check:– Whether the project is actually up and running– The number of workers– Who the subcontractors are – check truck IDs or
licenses
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Evaluating projects
• Federal bridge inspections – available from IRE• Dam inspections data – available from IRE,
and national inventory of dams• Census data – To adjust spending to per capita– to examine spending against demographics of
your community• Bureau of Labor Statistics – for unemployment
data
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Getting demographic information
• Census data: Factfinder.census.gov – Use population estimates to get overall
population– Use the American Community Survey for
other variables
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Other resources• Stories: www.ire.org/extraextra• Stories and data: www.stateline.org• Tip Sheets: www.ire.org• Public records questions: www.rcfp.org
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Tools for working with data• Spreadsheets: Excel or Google
spreadsheets• Databases: Access• Interactive Graphics – Many Eyes• Mapping – Google maps, ArcView,
Many Eyes