Thaindian News

FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY (BNO NEWS) A national report on Wednesday showed significant improvements, ranking Kentucky’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act transparency Web site number two in the country in terms of fiscal openness and accountability.

The report, Show Us the Stimulus (Again), was released by Good Jobs First, a nonprofit research center in Washington, D.C. It compares all 50 states on how well they track federal recovery spending and promote government accountability.

Kentucky’s new ranking is a remarkable improvement to a similar study that was published in July 2009 in which Kentucky ranked 47th.

It is an honor to have Kentucky at Work recognized for the great effort we’ve put into creating a site that shows the public where these tax dollars are being spent, said Governor Steve Beshear. More importantly, we were able to improve our ranking over 48 other states using only existing staff and no additional resources.

Based on a scale of 0 to 100, the average state score is 44 and the median is 42. Kentucky scored 85, second only to Maryland, which scored an 87.

Kentucky was recognized as one of only three states to show the geographic distribution of spending compared to distress or need. Kentucky at Work’s interactive map can display icons showing overall stimulus spending by county against a backdrop of color-coded county rates of unemployment or poverty.

The Commonwealth received a perfect score for disclosure on individual grants and contracts derived through American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus dollars.

Sites were judged by the inclusion of the description of contract/grant projects, the dollar amount of the contract or grant, the name of the recipient entity (whether government agency, for-profit contractor or other), the text of the contract or grant document, and the status of the project.