We're still going through the recipient reports the Recovery Board released today, but here's one early reaction: the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery (CAR), of which OMB Watch is a co-chair, released a statement on the recipient reports. Gary Bass, OMB Watch's executive director, summed up our feelings rather well.

As we wait for tomorrow's recipient reports to be published, some news articles are starting to leak out state by state. For those looking to get a sneak peak of what's happening in their state, many of the state agencies in charge of collecting recipient information at the state and local level have given previews to local papers. The Recovery Board itself, though, which is charged with publishing the recipient reports, is keeping mum and sticking to the Oct. 15 publishing date, so finding national level statistics is difficult. In an early morning press release, however, the Recovery Board released one tiny piece of useful information. According to the Board, so far, over 112,000 recipients have submitted data reports to FederalReporting.gov, the reporting site which feeds Recovery.gov.

OMB Director Peter Orszag released a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies this morning announcing a new initiative in the FY 2011 budget process that seeks to bring increased emphasis and resources for program evaluation within agencies. The memo has three separate goals:

1) Posting more information about federal evaluations online: OMB will begin working this fall with federal agencies to expand access to information about program evaluations.