From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: DATA Act and Reporting Federal Spending Description: Across the federal government, federal agencies are making final preparations to submit data ahead of the DATA Act's May 2017 deadline. This law intends to make federal spending data more transparent to taxpayers. Moving forward, how can the government not only report data, but insure the quality of the data produced? Related GAO Works: GAO-17-496 Data Act: As Reporting Deadline Nears, Challenges Remain That Will Affect Data Quality and GAO-17-460 DATA ACT: Office of Inspector General Reports Help Identify Agencies' Implementation Challenges Released: April 2017 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's April 2017. Federal agencies spend more than $3.7 trillion a year, but it's not always easy to get reliable, useful, and consistent information about where that money is going. Enter the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014, known as The Data Act. This law is supposed to make it easier for the public and policymakers to follow the federal money trail. In early May, all agencies must begin reporting standardized spending information. GAO is required to increase oversight of the act's implementation through a series of reports. Sarah Kaczmarek sat down with GAO's Chris Mihm and Paula Rascona to talk about their team's latest reports. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So Paula, tell me about your work and what this report is on? [ Paula Rascona: ] I'm a director on our Financial Management and Assurance team, and our team looked at the Office of Inspector General reports on agencies' readiness to implement and report on the Data Act. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So I know that there's a deadline coming up for federal agencies in early May. What's this deadline about? [ Paula Rascona: ] Agencies are going to be expected to submit their second-quarter federal spending data into the system designed by Department of the Treasury called the Broker System, and then that data will be made available for public viewing on USAspending.gov. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And are agencies ready to meet this deadline? How is that going? [ Paula Rascona: ] Well, some agencies are ready and others are not so ready. According to the reports that we read from the Office of Inspector Generals, there were 30 agencies' IGs that prepared reports, and they stated that about 13 of those agencies appear to be on track for submitting their data on time. So, we'll see what happens in May. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] All right, so let me bring Chris Mihm, GAO's managing director of our Strategic Issues team into this conversation. Chris, tell me about the report that your team is leading. [ Chris Mihm: ] Yeah, we worked very closely with Paula and continue to work closely with Paula and her team to look at Data Act implementation, and what we're focused on, and for this report was really three things. Again, on that readiness theme that Paula was just mentioning, first we found concerns about the quality and consistency and completeness of the guidance that OMB has provided to agencies on what is to be reported and how it's going to be reported. Second, we've had concerns or identified concerns that are really long-standing with the capacity of agencies in order to produce that data and the assurance statements that they're going to be able to make about the completeness and accuracy of the data, and then third, again, a long-standing issue for us has been the governance structure that's being put in place over time to manage Data Act implementation across the executive branch. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] So what did your team find in looking at data quality when it came to this report? [ Chris Mihm: ] The data that comes out in early May will not be uniformly complete and accurate across the executive branch. That's a given. What's going to be important for us, for all of us, is first that it get out there. Second, that agencies be transparent about the strengths and weakness of the data that they are posting, and third, that then they put in place concerted improvement plans to make sure that each subsequent round of reporting gets better. We just can't have a situation in which we put out bad data and say, well, it's bad, and it will be bad next time and bad the time after that. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And why is quality data so important? [ Chris Mihm: ] Well, it's important for number of reasons. Internal to government, it's important so that managers and decision-makers can look across and hopefully identify opportunities for efficiency, improvements, perhaps even shared services. But even more importantly, it's important for citizens, and it's important in at least three ways in our view. First is just basic transparency. As citizens, and as taxpayers, we ought to be able to see what government is spending our money on and how it's being spent. Second, if there's anything we've learned from the Open Government Initiatives that have been taking place, not just here in the US but globally, is that when you put machine-readable information out for citizens, they will figure out neat and creative ways to use that information. The whole kind of development of apps, we can predict, there will be an explosion of those over the coming years based on the data that comes out of the Data Act, and then third, it's important from a citizen confidence standpoint and government. It's important for citizens to see that they are getting return on investment for their tax dollars, and it is making a meaningful difference in people's lives, and that they're able to track that money. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] Let me bring Paula back into this conversation. Paula, what do you see as some key recommendations in your report? [ Paula Rascona: ] One of the key recommendations that we made was that we were seeing that OMB and Treasury weren't necessarily using the reports prepared by the IGs and taking heart the information that was contained therein and also being more aware of the challenges that agencies are facing to actually submit their data. So we're recommending that OMB and Treasury set up better processes or mechanisms to assess these reports. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And Chris, you've alluded to some possible recommendations from your report. Tell me about those. [ Chris Mihm: ] The new one that's in this report deals with something called the Data Standards Committee that OMB has formed to make sure that over time the quality and the standards remains high and that adjustments are needed or made as they are needed. We believe there needs to be more transparency into how those decisions are being made and the results of their decisions to be published for the wider community to see, not just to be kept inside. [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] And so our regular podcast listeners will know, we always end our podcasts really getting to the bottom line of our reports. Chris, let me ask you first, what do you see is the bottom line here? [ Chris Mihm: ] The bottom line is, and Paula and I are acutely aware that at some levels, you know, Data Act implementation can sound like an awful lot of inside baseball or processes stuff, but it really means -- effective implementation means an awful lot to us as citizens, because it will give us greater transparency, better data that we can use for our own purposes and our own kind of creative ways of figuring out ways to improve government, and then also, it will ultimately let us know, are we getting a return on investment? [ Sarah Kaczmarek: ] All right, Paula, the final word to you. What's the bottom line here? [ Paula Rascona: ] I think the bottom line is that taxpayers want to know where their money is being spent, and they need to have confidence in the reports that are coming out that indicate how those dollars are being spent. 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