Use stimulus reports to find local recovery stories

By Flickr user Wayne National Forest

A treasure trove of data was released yesterday when the latest quarterly report on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding was made available to the public.

If you haven’t yet familiarized yourself with Recovery.gov,  now is a good time to do so.  It features numerous searchable fields so you can narrow your inquiry by state, agency, type of award, and so on.  The site, which aims to provide transparency about how $787 billion in recovery funds are being spent, also offers plenty of backgrounders and explanatory notes on the act.

Generally, government agencies disburse the funds to contractors through the normal bidding process.  The end recipients can be private companies or departments at the state and local level, including schools, universities, public safety agencies and others.  They’re also required to submit spreadsheets detailing how the money was/will be spent, how many jobs were created or saved as a result, and other information you can delve into for story ideas.

Ron Nixon, a projects specialist at The New York Times, teaches sessions on mining recovery data at free journalism seminars offered by the Reynolds Center.  At a recent session in Philadelphia Ron offered a number of tips and caveats to reporters.  I’ll recap a few of them here; we also live-blogged the session and a transcript is is up on www.businessjournalism.org

Ron opens the presentation with a dramatic illustration of why this recovery-funds data must be interpreted with a healthy dose of skepticism and why reporters always need to call the agencies and companies in question to double check information and clams on the spreadsheets.  He points out this story he and colleague Michael Cooper did last fall, when the first stimulus spending reports came out, about a claim that 50 jobs were saved by the sale of a single $1,000 Toro lawnmower.

Long story short, the “50 jobs” number was a data-entry error.  And many other misleading or incorrect line items are attributable to the lack of a consistent methodology for preparing the reports, and the subjective nature of the entries.

Bottom line: Use these releases as food for thought, fodder for questions and story plans, and to further your understanding of stimulus-spending trends.  Don’t rely on them for quantitative claims just yet.

Other issues:  Be sure you understand whether the line items that catch your eye represent grants, contracts or loans.  Understand whether the entry applies to a prime contractor or sub.

Additional sources of data include:

The Federal Procurement Data System: Downloadable Excel spreadsheets of stimulus contracts.

FedBizOpps.gov: Another contract-tracking site.

GoodJobsFirst.org Tracks spending and also has a helpful. analysis of state stimulus-spending Web sites with links to individual state sites.

Recovery.org and StimulusWatch are two other watchdog sites.

Clearly there is no shortage of data.  I’d suggest getting your feet wet by sorting the downloadable spreadsheet by zip code and calling the companies listed to check out the “jobs saved” claims right in your backyard.  Also scrutinize the nature of the spending:  Is it going toward new initiatives or just keeping ongoing projects alive?  Are the companies receiving money engaged in new technology, expansion or other efforts that will boost your region’s economy.

We’ll revisit stimulus spending again and again – the main thing right now is to hone your Excel skills, bookmark the go-to sites and dip a toe in with a local-local analysis.