Venable Government Contracts Group partner Rob Burton was quoted in a November 20, 2009 article in Government Technology's Public CIO. Burton, former deputy administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, commented on the increase in reporting requirements facing state procurement officials as a result of the Obama administration's aggressive emphasis on transparency and vendor accountability.

State and local government agencies are experiencing an uptick in reporting requirements for projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). According to Burton, state vendors are not accustomed to providing all of the data requested for Recovery.gov on a quarterly basis.

"Contractors must provide the amount of Recovery Act funds invoiced by the contractor for each reporting period, a list of all significant services performed, suppliers, supplies delivered, and construction for which the contractor invoiced in each calendar quarter," Burton said. "Doing this on a quarterly basis is not easy."

According to the article, states are struggling to get reporting data from their vendors, as evidenced by the recent flurry of media stories about inaccuracies and missing data on Recovery.gov. The first quarterly reporting deadline was Oct. 10.

"A lot of the information is just not coming in from these state contractors. You can sort of see why. It's a very burdensome process and they have to do it by the 10th day after each calendar quarter," Burton said. "The most challenging thing is they have to describe the employment impact of the work funded by the Recovery Act. There has to be some type of narrative on the impact of the contractor's work force. It has to include a brief description of the types of jobs it created or the jobs that were retained as a result of this recovery money coming in."