RATB: Independent or an Agency?

Officials at the board overseeing stimulus spending and Recovery.gov have stressed to Nextgov that they are part of an independent body, not the White House. Ever since Congress established the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board last winter, officials have said they should not be described in print as White House officials or government agency officials.

Now that the board is in the spotlight, due to a debate over inflated job creation figures on Recovery.gov, there also seems to be a debate over the board's authority.

Is it independent or a government agency?

The Wall Street Journal ran a story on Monday that described the board as an agency. The first sentence reads:

The government agency charged with overseeing the economic-stimulus program says it has no plans to change its claim that the package directly created or saved 640,329.17 jobs through September, despite its own admission and statements from the White House that the number is not accurate. . . The board says only stimulus recipients can change the reports they file, and that federal agencies are responsible for checking the reports.

The headline of the Journal's article is "Agency Stands Pat on Stimulus Jobs."

Meanwhile, Earl Devaney, the head of the board, introduces himself on Recovery.gov, the stimulus-tracking site he oversees, as "chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the independent board set up by Congress to monitor Recovery spending."

Statutory language and the board's guidance are silent on the issue, consistently referring to the body as a "board" with no mention of independence, sovereignty or non-federal.

According to its governance guidelines, bylaws and section 1521 of the Recovery Act, the board is responsible for "reviewing the results of audits" for signs of waste, fraud and abuse and "referring matters it considers appropriate for investigation to the inspector general for the agency that disbursed the covered funds."

How much control does the stimulus watchdog have?