Tip Sheets

Tracking health-related stimulus money

By Michael Grabell/ProPublica

Recovery.gov

Every 3 months, contractors, nonprofits, local governments, etc. are required to report about 100 different pieces of information, detailing how much stimulus money they received, what they did with it and how many jobs they created. It also includes the 5 highest paid employees and detailed vendor expenses for health centers.

ProPublica's Recovery Tracker

ProPublica made the data searchable by county and added in thousands of records from USASpending - including small business loans, Pell grants and Section 8 allocations. We also added in Cash for Clunkers data and linked sub-recipients like school districts to their counties.

USASpending.gov

This is another place to download information on contracts, grants and loans. Click on spending, then contracts/grants/loans and advanced search for place of performance. You can click on level of detail you want or download it in a txt file which you can open in Excel.

FedBizOpps

This site allows you keep track of contract bids and awards as they happen. You can set up an alert to watch contracts in your community.

http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimulus/item/pr-firm-behind-propaganda-videos-wins-stimulus-contract

NIH Grants

This database gives you additional information about the research and the principal investigator.

Excluded Parties List System

This unwieldy database contains contractors and other groups that have been prohibited from receiving federal money for one reason or another. This is a good way to find stimulus contractors with problems in their past. To download it, click on advanced search, scroll to the bottom and click search. Scroll to the bottom again and you'll see links to download the data in ASCII, Excel or XML. States, cities and schools districts also keep their own debarred lists.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09174.pdf

http://www.desc.dla.mil/DCM/Files/State Suspension and Debarment Websites.doc

Federal Audit Clearinghouse

Obtain detailed reports on the financial shape of nonprofits, health centers and other federal grantees.

GAO Reports

If you live in Arizona, California, Colorado, DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, the GAO does a 50 page bimonthly report on how your state is using stimulus money.