Recovery Board to Post the Identities of 'Two-Time Losers'

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Recipients of 1,036 awards representing $583 million in Recovery funds failed to submit spending reports as required by the Recovery Act for the quarter that ended December 31, 2009, according to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.

On Thursday, www.recovery.gov, the website managed by the Recovery Board, posted the names and awards of recipients that failed to file reports for the October-December quarter on its landing page titled, "Errors, Omissions, Non-Reported Awards.'' In a separate PDF on that page, the Board identified recipients that did not file reports on 389 awards for both the final quarter of 2009 and the earlier reporting period covering February through September 30, 2009.

"The two-time losers—those who failed to file reports in the last quarter of 2009 and the earlier reporting period—should really be embarrassed," said Earl E. Devaney, the Chairman of the Recovery board. "They took millions of dollars and then thumbed their noses at taxpayers.''

Devaney noted that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 imposes no penalty on recipients that fail to report. He has previously testified before Congress in support of establishing penalties in the law.

He said, however, that federal agencies may be able to use their administrative powers to punish law violators. According to Devaney, federal agencies have repeatedly asked non-complying recipients to file their required reports. Some of those requests, he said, have fallen on deaf ears. "Federal agencies now need to take whatever administrative action they can against those who flout the law so cavalierly,'' Devaney said, "including recovering money that the recipients have not yet spent."

A veteran of nearly 40 years in law enforcement, Devaney said that he was particularly disappointed that some of the 389 two-time losers included police departments that received COPS grants from the Department of Justice but failed to submit reports to the Recovery Board. "It is very disturbing to me," he said, "that a police department would decide that it does not have to comply with a law."

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SOURCE Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board

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