Agencies must start collecting subaward data for inclusion into USAspending.gov by Oct. 1, according to a new Office of Management Budget memo signed by Jeffery Zients, the deputy director for management.

The Transparency Act of 2006 required OMB to create a searchable online site of federal award data, meaning contracts and grants, as well as subawards, meaning subgrants and subcontracts.

However, the site has not included subaward data, a lack that one co-sponsor of the bill, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), recently chastised Federal Chief Information Office Vivek Kundra for during a March hearing. The other co-sponsor was then Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

The memo lays out steps so that by the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, all awards will be reported on time, completely and accurately, the memo states. The Federal Acquisition Regulation Council will issue an interim rule so that the capture and reporting of subcontractor information becomes a standard contract clause by May 2010, the memo adds.

USAspending.gov will move into a cloud computing environment and include new dashboards to break down presentation of the data by agency, recipient and location, according to the memo. A new version of the site should be online by this spring, it adds.

For more:
- read the OMB memo (.pdf)

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