Hard job ahead to keep track of stimulus money

The Obama administration's economic stimulus plan has plenty of items in the $800 billion-plus package that must be tracked. Chief among them are the billions that will be contracted to outside firms to shore up things such as bridges and other public works projects. Government auditors will be asked to keep track of plenty of the money that is spent by a depleted workforce of contractors, a tough task in normal times but even harder when a surge of money is flooded into projects.

But experts say the amount of money from the plan underscores the difficult task facing 29,000 federal contracting personnel in civilian agencies who will be asked to take on additional work generated by the stimulus package. To help ease this burden, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is proposing hiring more acquisition workers, investigators and auditors--about $60 million to hire about 600 workers.

"We have to beef up the acquisition personnel and the resources of the inspectors general or you cannot get to accountability," she said. "This bill isn't cheap, but it will cost us far more in the long run if we don't do this right."

It's one of many issues that have to be hammered out in the coming days before the stimulus plan is passed and signed into law by President Obama.

For more on this story:
- check out this Washington Post article

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Economic stimulus plan news from FierceGovernmentIT