Digital Accountability and Transparency Act | The Contracting Education Academy

May 11, 2017 By AMK

Federal spending data is due: Is anyone meeting the deadline?

Three years after the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act was signed, federal agencies are uploading their financial data to USASpending.gov, an effort to make government operations more transparent to the public.

A beta version of the site, where some of that data is currently accessible, was launched Tuesday by the Treasury Department and Amazon Web Services. Treasury, along with the Office of Management and Budget, is tasked with implementing the DATA Act.

Agencies are still racing to meet the May 9 deadline. Most appear to have reported some data, even if only partially, according to Treasury’s data directory. But missed deadlines and imperfect compliance won’t be a surprise: watchdog reports suggested as much.

For instance, several inspector general audits conducted last year concluded at least three wouldn’t meet the deadline, and another dozen hadn’t said if they would or would not. The Government Accountability Office also concluded OMB and Treasury aren’t using agencies’ internal audits to help gauge their financial transparency audits.

Keep reading this article at: http://m.nextgov.com/big-data/2017/05/federal-spending-data-due-anyone-making-deadline/137702

May 5, 2017 By AMK

Contract spending data will be critical to modernizing government

If federal agencies don’t make their spending data public in the next several days, they will miss a critical milestone outlined in the 2014 Digital Accountability and Transparency Act.

The DATA Act requires agencies to provide standardized financial data to the Treasury Department by May 9. Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget are overseeing the implementation, which will result in searchable data on USAspending.gov.

According to various inspector general audits from last year, at least three agencies are not on track to meet that deadline, and another 12 have not made it clear whether they will. But financial transparency is still a priority for President Donald Trump’s administration, Matt Lira, special assistant to the president for innovation policy and initiatives, told an audience in Washington last week.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/big-data/2017/04/trump-aide-signals-spending-data-will-be-critical-modernizing-government/137408

April 4, 2017 By AMK

GSA’s new contract with Dun & Bradstreet draws mixed reaction

Last week’s announcement that the General Services Administration (GSA) had updated its Dun & Bradstreet contract will allow agency acquisition personnel and contractors wider latitude to use the standardized company information for purposes beyond mere identification.

But some transparency advocates consider the step insufficient.

In a Sept. 29 blog post, Kevin Youel Page, deputy commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, announced changes in the proprietary system for business identifiers in its Integrated Award Environment tracking system that are a “huge step forward in the goal to make data more accessible and readily available across government.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/management/2016/10/gsas-new-contract-dun-bradstreet-draws-mixed-reaction/132205/

Three years after the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act was signed, federal agencies are uploading their financial data to USASpending.gov, an effort to make government operations more transparent to the public.

If federal agencies don’t make their spending data public in the next several days, they will miss a critical milestone outlined in the 2014 Digital Accountability and Transparency Act.

Last week’s announcement that the General Services Administration (GSA) had updated its Dun & Bradstreet contract will allow agency acquisition personnel and contractors wider latitude to use the standardized company information for purposes beyond mere identification.

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