Georgia Coalition Following the Money

by Jayne Watson of Common Cause Georgia

The Georgia Stimulus Transparency and Accountability Coalition was recently featured in an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution , which looked at the oversight of stimulus money flowing into the state.

The AJC article states "our coalition is concerned about random selection. If we can provide some oversight, we think it's going to be a better process, a little less political, a little more objective, and a little more structured."

A member of our coalition, the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, recently released an analysis providing a breakdown of the $6.35 billion in federal stimulus money Georgia will receive. So the coalition is pushing for the state's agencies to release their specific plans for spending ARRA funds and, where relevant, provide the public with more details on the process for selecting which projects receive stimulus money.

Our coalition has been in touch with Celeste Osborn, Georgia's deputy financial officer, who was appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue to head the state's Recovery Act Implementation Team, which is charged with making sure federal stimulus money is spent in the right places. Celeste Osborne has explained that stimulus money will be easily tracked because the ARRA funds are assigned its own federal account number to distinguish it from other federal grant money.

Georgia, like most states, has a website to track stimulus spending, although it is not as robust as our coalition would like to see. We are advocating for more information on each area of ARRA funding to be made available and that it be presented in a manner that can be easily understood by an interested member of the public. Celeste Osborne has responded that more information will be made available soon. The GSTAC coalition has shared suggestions for the website with the deputy financial officer and we look forward to working with her Recovery Act Implementation Team improve the quality and accessibility of information on the website. The coalition's overall objective is to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse by making information public and shining a light on the process.

Other members of the Accountability Coalition include Southern Environmental Law Center, Georgia Watch, and Policy Link.

For more information contact Jayne Watson at jwatson(at)commoncause.org