Gaps in CARES Act Data Sources and How to Close Them
The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) is responsible for providing the public with a transparent accounting of how pandemic relief and response funds were spent. To evaluate our ability to provide the most comprehensive look at CARES Act spending, we wanted to determine if there were gaps in the data currently available to us and whether those gaps would affect the level of transparency we could offer the public. We commissioned a study to examine this issue, reviewing data from USASpending.gov, the Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program, and the Treasury OIG Coronavirus Relief Fund.
What the study found
Existing publicly available data does meet a substantial portion of the CARES Act transparency requirements, but the study found 16 key gaps in the data sources themselves that could impair our ability to provide the public with timely data and information on federal pandemic spending. The report identifies 13 corrective actions that Congress, OMB, agencies, and others can take to lessen these gaps.
Why we are sharing this report
We’re making this full report available to inform policymakers, Congress, OMB, federal agencies, and the public of the gaps in data sources and the actions we can all take to reduce them. We plan to collaborate with partners to close these gaps and achieve the suggested improvements to provide the best possible transparency into pandemic spending. To see the data already collected and displayed on the site, take a look at these interactive dashboards and this interactive map.
Read the executive summary of the report, Transparency in Pandemic-Related Federal Spending: Report of Alignment and Gaps.