Nearly a decade ago, Congress passed legislation to significantly improve federal reporting of spending information and provide greater transparency to the American public about how taxpayer dollars are used. The law—the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or DATA Act—included provisions for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Inspectors General (IG) to evaluate how well agencies complied with the law’s requirements, including the extent to which agencies adhered to data standards and submitted quality data over time.
These evaluations of how agencies implemented the DATA Act are examples of how GAO and the IG community support, coordinate, and leverage evaluative activities guided by practices in the GAO Yellow Book (Government Auditing Standards). Taken as a whole, these evaluations also provide powerful examples of the benefits and challenges of conducting “real time” audits of a complex, government-wide reform initiative.
The Data Foundation and GAO hosted this installment of the Issues in Evaluation Series on Wednesday, November 30, and focused on lessons from audits and evaluations of DATA Act implementation and how they can help to inform future studies and evaluations that use data from USAspending.gov.
Speakers
Maria Belaval, Senior Auditor, Financial Management and Assurance, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Peter Del Toro, Assistant Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Kathleen Drennan, Assistant Director, Strategic Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Nick Hart, Ph.D., President, Data Foundation
Terell Lasane, Ph.D., Assistant Director, Center for Evaluation Methods and Issues (CEMI), U.S. Government Accountability Office
