Although President Obama has vowed that citizens will be able to track “every dime” of the $787 billion stimulus bill, a government Web site committed to the spending won’t have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring — halfway through the program, administration officials said.

Recovery.gov now lists programs being funded by the stimulus money, but provides no details on who received the grants and contracts. Agencies won’t report that notes until Oct. 10, according to Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which manages the Web site.

Devaney told a House subcommittee Tuesday that it will be a challenge to have the site ready to present spending documents in five months. He said after the hearing that the board doesn’t have adequate input storage capacity, for example.

Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, a Republican serving on the House Science and Technology subcommittee, criticized the administration’s decision to require reporting of only the first two recipients of stimulus spending. Broun said that means whether the money goes to a state and soon after a city, the identities of the city’s contractors will be unavailable.

Devaney said that after the first details become available in October, the board will wait six to nine months for the White House Office of Management and Budget to issue new guidance on how far down the spending chain the money must be tracked. “I’m going to push them for as much documents as possible,” he said.

Devaney’s spokeswoman, Nancy DiPaolo, said the Web site may not be completed until next spring.

The board solicited ideas for the site last week during an online “national dialogue” that drew 542 ideas and 1,330 comments. The suggestions included adding mapping tools and other software to allow users to search the goods.

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[Source] dhiram