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1 1 (November 26, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbboy0001 and id is 1 raw text is: - .......... Updated November 26, 2019 Tracking Federal Awards in States and Congressional Districts Using USAspending.gov O.verview USAspending.gov, available to the public at http://www.USAspending.gov, is a government source for data on federal awards by state, congressional district (CD), zip code, city, and county. The awards data in USAspending.gov is provided by federal agencies and represents grants, contracts, loans, and other financial assistance. Grant awards include money the federal government commits for projects in states, local jurisdictions, regions, territories, and tribal reservations, as well as payments for eligible needs to help individuals and families. Contract awards refer to bids and agreements the federal government makes for specific goods and services. USAspending.gov does not include data on actual spending by recipients. USAspending.gov also provides tools for examining the broader picture of federal spending obligations within the categories of budget function, agency, and object class. Budget function refers to the major purpose that the spending serves, such as Social Security, Medicare, and national defense. Object class refers to the type of item or service purchased by the federal government, such as grants, contracts, and personnel compensation and benefits. Using USAspending.gov to locate and compile accurate data on federal awards presents challenges, in part, because of continued data quality issues that have been identified by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Researchers need to be aware that search results may be incomplete or contain inaccuracies. USAspending.gov includes the following features: * Advanced Award Search of prime and subaward data back to FY2008 allows filtering by award type, awarding agency, recipient, country, state, zip, city, county, CD, and other criteria. To identify where money is being spent, search on Place of Performance versus Recipient Location. Search results include awards that are active during the selected fiscal year, regardless of when the award initially started. Details on an individual award, including transaction history and subawards, may be viewed by clicking on the Award ID. The results list displayed can be downloaded at either the award or transaction level, along with additional details about each award, into a spreadsheet. The advanced search is continually being developed and improved, so new features may have become available since the publication of this report. * Spending Explorer enables big picture browsing of federal spending obligations and offers interactive data visualization by budget function, agency, and object class. With this tool, users can see the budget function breakdown by categories such as Social Security, Medicare, and national defense; obligated amounts by agency; and obligations by object class categories such as grants, contracts, and personnel compensation and benefits. * Profiles of Agencies and Federal Accounts features data on each agency's budgetary resources, a dollar amount that has been obligated (or committed to be spent) against those budgetary resources, a breakdown of these obligations by object class, and the federal accounts through which the obligations are administered. Users can also browse a list of the nearly 2,000 federal accounts and track spending obligations within each. The data in this section is presented visually through interactive charts. * Profiles of States provides tables, interactive maps, and graphs showing a breakdown of a total awarded amount to each state back to FY2008. Breakdowns include totals by award type, county, and CD. Profiles also include top five rankings in various categories, such as awarding agencies and recipients. * Profiles of Recipients contains information on entities that have received federal awards in the form of contracts, grants, loans, or other financial assistance back to FY2008. Recipient profiles include data on award trends over time and top five rankings in various categories. * Download Center allows bulk exporting of large, pregenerated award data sets by agency, award type, and fiscal year through the Award Data Archive. The custom download pages-Custom Award Data and Custom Account Data (which covers all spending data, including nonaward spending)-also allow downloading of large data sets but provide additional filtering options. Key Challenges in Tracking Awards Key challenges may be usefully considered in two general categories: (1) reporting issues and (2) pass-through issues. In addition, tracking awards in CDs presents several specific issues that are addressed separately below. Reporting issues Federal agencies are required to submit reports on awards transactions within 30 days after they are implemented. There may be a longer lag-time with data from the Department of Defense, generally 90 days. Although this reporting requirement is in place, issues still remain involving of the data's completeness, consistency, and accuracy (see Background on USAspending.gov). g ,, 'gmm ppmmp mgmommoN, 10N ILU

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