Treasury works on tracking bank rescue money

The Treasury Department intends to use technology to keep track of how banks and financial institutions use funds from the government's financial rescue program. There have been plenty of disclosures that the first half of the bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, had been poorly tracked and some of it misused. $350 million of funds were received by the institutions at the end of the Bush administration.

Diane Litman, the Treasury's associate chief information officer for planning and management, told Federal Computer Week there will have to be a better system to keep an eye on the money.

"What they're going to need are systems that help them to keep track of the money, how it's being spent, analyzing how successfully that money is being spent, and have they used the money to ease the credit crunch and to what extent," she said Feb. 19 at an industry event covered by FCW.

She said officials in and out of government have been trying to figure out how to share information in a secure manner so data is transmitted between a government and a non government entity securely.

"We have to try to figure how to be smarter about what contracts we put in place so we can leverage them more quickly and help the TARP people spin on a dime," Litman said.

It will all be done publicly. With President Obama's promise of a transparent government, Treasury has begun posting information about TARP at a public website: www.financialstability.gov

For more on this story:
Check out this FCW.com article

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