Roundtable: Experts Discuss ARRA Reporting Challenges
It took a little more than a month for Congress to draw up the stimulus legislation that guides schools as they spend an unprecedented $100 billion in education funds over the course of two years. The marching orders were almost breathtakingly ambitious: To spend the money quickly, but wisely; to save jobs and programs, but also implement meaningful school reform; and to do all of this while steering away from activities that can't be sustained after the money dries up — the ominously named "funding cliff." It's no surprise, then, that many administrators have jokingly characterized the process as "building the plane while it's flying."
Perhaps the most difficult feat of engineering involved in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been a new requirement to report every quarter on the number of jobs created or retained due to the stimulus, and to collect similar data from third-party vendors. In a freewheeling discussion, editors at our sister publication, the Title I Monitor, talked with experts in the field of education finance about their crash course in ARRA reporting
It's about much more than recording jobs created and retained.The historic influx of education dollars has led to intense scrutiny from the public, the media and various watchdog groups. Beyond mastering the technical details of reporting, administrators are also concerned with the larger arena of public relations: How, for example, do budget-strapped districts explain cuts in jobs and services at a time when they are asked to show an increase in jobs due to the stimulus? Despite a short window within which to spend these funds, administrators are also acutely sensitive of the need to spend all of their stimulus dollars without returning portions to the U.S. Treasury.
Participants in the roundtable offered lessons learned from the first round of reporting and delved into unanswered questions going into Round Two.
