Tracking the Stimulus: BI Answers Call for Government TransparencyTracking the Stimulus: BI Answers Call for Government Transparency

Whether you're relieved or alarmed by the magnitude of the $787 billion economic stimulus package authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it may comfort you to know that the Act stipulated strict accountability requirements, including the creation of a Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and a Recovery.gov Web site for reporting on spending and results.

The good news for business intelligence (BI) professionals is that transparent reporting will require a lot of dashboards, reports and key performance metrics. And that will mean new jobs -- or at least continued employment -- for government IT workers and new contracts for BI software and systems integration firms.

Stimulus tracking is already underway in Arkansas, where the state's Department of Education has added Web-based planning and reporting capabilities to a larger IBM Cognos enterprise planning and analysis project that was underway.

"We were in the process of expanding access to our data warehouse when IBM approached us to ask us if we'd be interested in working with them to meet federal reporting requirements related to stimulus money," explains Bill Goff, assistant commissioner of fiscal and administrative services at the Arkansas Department of Education (DOE). "Development of an input tool began in April, and the first step will be for each district and individual school to submit plans for spending [Recovery Act] allocations."

The additional input and tracking technology added about $200,000 to the $1.2 million project already underway, according to Goff. Two to four power users in each of Arkansas' 262 school districts (or a total of 600 to 800 users) will have access to the spreadsheet-like input and analysis tool, which is based on IBM Cognos TM1 software. Once the districts sign off on their plans, the state DOE will review and approve them, and the funds could start flowing to some 1,100 eligible schools in the state as soon as June 30.

Many states will use stimulus funds to restore budget cuts (and hopefully save jobs). But Goff says Arkansas hasn't faced reductions in educational spending, "so most of those dollars will be used to go beyond what we're doing today." The majority of funds will be used for repair, renovation and modernization of school facilities, he says, which should lead to construction employment. As monies are spent, Arkansas and each of the districts will be required to report on spending and performance measures that will be defined in the second phase of the project. Goff says citizens will be able to track expenditures on the Arkansas DOE Web site, with drill-down capabilities to see what's being spent in individual districts and schools.

IBM says it’s working with more than 2,000 federal, state and local government agencies and has demonstrated a portfolio of Recovery Fund Tracking technologies, including dashboards, balanced scorecards, and reporting and planning tools.

"The states face strict requirements to track where this [stimulus] money will be invested, and many of the key performance indicators where set by the Recovery Act itself," says Rob Dolan, director, global public sector industry marketing at IBM Cognos. "A model was developed to determine how much funding would go to each state, and that formed the basis for measures and targets for the number of jobs to be created."

Independent BI vendors MicroStrategy and Actuate have also developed systems aimed at stimulus tracking. MicroStrategy has submitted a Recovery.gov dashboard (see screen shot shown above) to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. The display offers a series of visual analyses with drill-downs on data currently reported on the Recovery.gov Web site.

"Information dashboards are ideal for this initiative," states MicroStrategy COO Sanju Bansal. "They provide the ability to display large volumes of information in an intuitive, graphical format that will allow citizens to analyze and evaluate how their tax dollars are being spent."

A framework built into Actuate's Stimulus Management Solution includes reporting metrics such as cost per job created and percent of funds used. Based on Actuate's Performancesoft Suite and open-source BIRT reporting technology, the solution includes interactive dashboards and "sustainability scorecards" designed to help government agencies investigate and report on underlying operational details.

The Recovery Act sets forth audacious goals, including creating 3.5 million jobs, upgrading 75 percent of the nation's worst bridges and highways, and weatherizing and modernizing 75 percent of federal buildings to be more energy efficient -- all within two years. Add to that list the goal of attempting what may turn out to be the biggest experiment in e-government-style reporting and transparency every attempted. What's more, it's a BI-powered project, and within a few short years it may prove whether (or not) there is such a thing as intelligent government.