Enjoying The Sunshine
The old saying “sunshine is the best antiseptic” is a familiar phrase. Fortunately, when it comes to how states are spending federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money, Massachusetts is among the best at letting citizens know where that money is going.
And while we tend to be hard on the state when it does poorly in national rankings (the state’s tax burden comes to mind) we’d like to put politics aside and congratulate Massachusetts on meeting a serious and daunting challenge.
According to a report from Good Jobs First, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, the state has improved to 10th in the nation for transparency of stimulus spending.
States were required to build web sites detailing where their share of the $787 billion stimulus package was being spent and how.
But the job isn’t easy, and in a separate report, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, MassPIRG and Common Cause Massachusetts note that while the state’s system to distribute and track the stimulus dollars tells citizens where the money is going with maps, reports and other tools, the system could stand for further improvement. Ensuring that ARRA funds are distributed and used fairly by the projects to which they’re aimed is of the utmost importance.
However, the ARRA sought to get funding to states quickly, and as a result, www.mass.gov/recovery has noticeable weaknesses.
None of these weaknesses are so difficult to overcome that they can’t be addressed right away.
Difficult Navigation
On the good side, the site has made a huge amount of information available. On the bad side, that information is hard to find.
There’s a serious lack of contact information on the site. Who is a business owner, citizen, government or elected official supposed to contact about this expenditure or that?
The site also needs more detailed information about job creation. MassBudget says on the current site, the amount of ARRA money per job appears inflated, while job numbers appear lower than what they actually are.
There’s also a real lack of consistency and an overdependence on the PDF format, which makes it difficult for users to switch between information sources.
It seems Massachusetts has been on the cusp of true national leadership in a number of important areas for a decade: health care, for example. But the state in many regards has fallen short of that status.
During his campaign for the U.S. Senate, Scott Brown criticized the state for spending stimulus funds too slowly. While a speedier spending system may seem advantageous, it is equally important that the state carefully track where that money is spent. The state has done this very well, but speed can only come after it finds a way to keep its citizens informed at the same high level.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments