A short 27 days after announcing the RFP, yesterday the GSA awarded the Recovery.gov redesign contract to Smartronix, a Maryland firm. Smartronix was one of only three companies to submit bids, out of the 59 companies allowed to bid under the GSA's Alliant acquisition contract. The award is an exciting development, since the current iteration of Recovery.gov (built from a contract with REI Systems) is not very useful in tracking Recovery Act funds, so we're looking forward to a new and improved site. However, the project hasn't gotten off to a promising start.

To celebrate the first 100 days of the Recovery Act, the Vice President's office released a report on May 27 called "100 Days, 100 Projects," highlighting 100 projects funded under the Recovery Act. The Administration is calling the report a "snapshot" of how the Recovery Act is affecting people all across the nation. And "snapshot" is the perfect term for this report, since it gives us a quick glimpse into the information the Administration has collected so far, but it leaves us with more questions than answers.

It seems that one of the themes running through the recovery effort is the (relatively) blazing speed of the Recovery Act as it passed through Congress versus the considerably slower pace of Recovery Act funds disbursement from Washington. Last week, the New York Times reported that only a "sliver" of the stimulus money has been distributed ($36.8 billion has been disbursed so far, according to the latest data from Recovery.gov), most of which was in the form of one-time Social Security checks, Medicaid supplements, and unemployment benefits. But while the rate and types of spending were prescribed by law -- $115 billion in spending was appropriated through the end of September of this year -- other factors are a slowing the rate of fund disbursal into the economy.

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the Office of Management and Budget and the National Academy of Public Administration are hosting a week-long, online dialogue around the question "What ideas, tools, and approaches can make Recovery.gov a place where all citizens can transparently monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds?"