As detailed in a February 18, 2009 memo, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) outined an extensive report on their Initial Implementing Gudiance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 memo. (PDF copy of the memo; Opens in a new window). This memo provides information on the extensive new reporting requirements for any funding received as part of the ARRA of 2009. Beginning on page 14, the Director provides guidance on the reporting requirements that each recipient of funds will have to abide by from this Act. The stimulus reporting requirements on page 15 indicates that:

"As required by Section 1512 of the Recovery Act and this guidance, each recipient, as described above, is required to report the following information to the Federal agency providing the award 10 days after the end of each calendar quarter, starting on July 10th.

These reports will include the following data elements, as prescribed by the Recovery Act:

1. The total amount of recovery funds received from that agency;
2. The amount of recovery funds received that were obligated and expended to projects or activities. This reporting will also included unobligated Allotment balances to facilitate reconciliations.
3. A detailed list of all projects or activities for which recovery funds were obligated and expended, including--
   • (A) The name of the project or activity;
   • (B) A description of the project or activity;
   • (C) An evaluation of the completion status of the project or activity;
   • (D) An estimate of the number of jobs created and the number of jobs retained by the project or activity; and
   • (E) For infrastructure investments made by State and local governments, the purpose, total cost, and rationale of the agency for funding the infrastructure investment with funds made available under this Act, and name of the person to contact at the agency if there are concerns with the infrastructure investment.
4. Detailed information on any subcontracts or subgrants awarded by the recipient to include the data elements required to comply with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (P.L. 109-282; PDF document; Opens in a new window), allowing aggregate reporting on awards below $25,000 or to individuals, as prescribed by the Director of OMB.

The final guidance issued by OMB for the Recovery Act will lay out in more detail specific reporting instructions and how the data collection for this reporting will work government-wide. OMB is actively pursuing options for collecting some of this information centrally, focusing first on the data required in (4) above in the standard formats currently used by Federal agencies to report to USASpending.gov. OMB is also actively considering how to centralize the collection and reporting of the information required in section (3) above, though the current preference is that, to the extent possible, this data should be collected and reported through existing program level systems. Agencies should develop initial contingency plans for collecting and reporting this information directly on the agency recovery website within the 30 days specified by law.

Instructions for reporting this information will be provided in subsequent guidance. Agencies should be cautious before making investments in new system capabilities before further guidance is issued or before consulting with OMB.

Regarding the reporting requirements in 3(D), usual methods for reporting jobs created by a contract do not take into account the time frame over which the jobs are created. As a result, they are likely to be inconsistent with macroeconomic estimates of jobs created at a point in time. For this reason, departments and agencies should use conventional jobs estimates for internal planning purposes only. Uniform reporting requirements for estimates of job creation will be specified at a later time.

As a follow-up, an updated memorandum has been issued detailing the second installment of government-wide guidance (PDF document; Opens in a new window) for carrying out programs and activities enacted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“Recovery Act”) of 2009.