Casual observers might be forgiven for thinking that things are a bit slow over at the Government Accountability and Transparency Board. This is the 11-member panel, you may recall, created last summer by President Obama as “a critical next step” in White House efforts to cut costs, crack down on fraud and open up the government’s books to the public. Almost five months after the board’s chairman, Earl Devaney, retired, Obama hasn’t named a replacement. During the same time, the panel, made up mostly of inspectors general and financial management folk, has met just once, in April. But work on recommendations…
Browsing: Earl Devaney
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) sent a letter on Nov. 13 (pdf) to Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, raising some questions about the stimulus data posted on Recovery.gov. Issa was specifically concerned about the “jobs created/saved” data: The site claims 640,329 jobs have been created or saved, but there’s widespread agreement that figure is wrong.
GSA announced last night that it has awarded a contract for the Recovery.gov redesign; the $18 million contract went to Smartronix, a Maryland-based IT firm. It beat out 58 other bidders. The first part of the contract is worth about $9.5 million through January; other options, which extend through January 2014, are worth another $8.5 million or so. Redesigning the recovery site is a big undertaking; it needs to be online by mid-October, when state and local governments start reporting their stimulus spending data. You’ll find more details about that in my interview with Earl Devaney from last week; we’ll…
A couple of tidbits about stimulus oversight. First, the president just announced Earl Devaney as the inspector general for the stimulus program. The name might sound familiar: Devaney has been the Interior Department’s IG since 1999, and he led some big investigations — the Jack Abramoff scandal and the MMS scandal, to name a couple. He’ll undoubtedly have his hands full with the new job (can we call him the SIGSTIM?). Second, the Interior Department will announce its own “stimulus czar” this week. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters the yet-to-be-named official is someone with lots of oversight experience. The…
It hasn’t been a good few months for the Interior Department. Interior’s inspector general, Earl Devaney, just released his office’s latest report (pdf). It examines how former deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald politicized the Endangered Species Act: We determined that MacDonald’s management style was abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive, and that her conduct demoralized and frustrated her staff as well as her subordinate managers. … MacDonald’s zeal to advance her agenda has caused considerable harm to the integrity of the ESA program and to the morale and reputation of the [Fish and Wildlife…