Recovery.Org Beats Recovery.Gov to the Punch

Friday, April 17, 2009 9:57 AM

While the Administration is trying to tamper expectations regarding the implementation of full transparency relating to the trillion dollar spending and debt package passed under the guise of "economic stimulus" earlier this year, the private sector has zipped past the Administration. 

Recovery.org, a website launched by Seattle-based Onvia, a company that has long been collecting procurement data for all levels of government, currently provides significantly more relevant information than Recovery.gov, the website created by the Obama Administration as the supposed repository for "stimulus" transparency.

An article on GovernmentExecutive.com outlines the stark contrast between the two sites:

For example, assume you are a resident of Yellowstone, Mont., and want to know how your county is spending its portion of stimulus funding. Through three drop-down menus on Recovery.org's homepage, you could scroll through a pre-solicitation notice for a contract to repair Little Bighorn Battlefield Road, or learn details about a drainage project in the Lockwood area.

On Recovery.gov, you would be directed to Montana's Recovery Act site, and from there, you could spend hours sloshing through tutorials on the state's education and energy projects without ever finding details on spending in your neighborhood.

And as for improvement plans, Onvia has this in store:

The next step, Onvia said, is to format the data so users can filter it by contractor, project type or federal agency; currently the information can be sorted based only on the geographical region of the project. Onvia also plans to allow citizens to download the data so they can create mash-ups, or overlay it with other information sources, such as census or crime statistics.

Now, that certainly sounds a lot more useful than press releases and redirects to other websites...

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