Recovery act: OMB convenes online forum to talk about guidelines

The Office of Management and Budget is holding a series of online forums aimed at helping companies and organizations better understand the transparency guidelines under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Each of the forums, co-hosted by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, will focus on a different aspect of the reporting requirements, ranging from counting and reporting the number of jobs created to measuring data quality.

“As we move forward, it’s important that everyone understand precisely what they are responsible to report to the public,” said Rob Nabors, OMB’s deputy director.

The recovery board must collect data from prime funding recipients no later than Oct. 10, according to OMB. Recipients will submit the data via a new online information center, www.FederalReporting.gov.

The center is designed to reduce the burden on recipients by simplifying instructions and providing a user-friendly mechanism for submitting required data, according to OMB. The agency plans to publish the information no later than Oct. 30.

More than 17,000 people have registered for the forums, and nearly all the sessions are full, OMB officials said. Archived versions of the discussions will be available at www.whitehouse.gov/recovery.