Danny Werfel of the Office of Management and Budget recently told a House committee an absence of information about money isn't the same as a loss of money. A Sunlight Foundation analysis found that while the Agriculture Department spent $12.7 billion during fiscal 2009 on school meal programs, USASpending.gov reported only $250,000 worth of school meal spending for that year. Werfel explained that because amounts under $25,000 don't have to be reported to USASpending.gov, most school meal spending goes unreported.
So what is the point of USASpending.gov, if it's not counting the same dollars that government departments are paying out? Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation said most agencies use different systems for internal management purposes and for "transparency purposes". That's not transparency as you and I understand it. It's keeping two divergent models of the business. Werfel also explained that agencies often create manual reports for public consumption - "what are sometimes called cuff reports, putting together the reports separately, and therefore it's not as efficient and [the data] is not as reliable".
If ever I saw a situation crying out for data standards, this is one.
I'm betting that if a commercial organization took this approach to reporting, the cuffs we'd be talking about would be the metal kind. usa spending
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