The Government Accountability Office named Illinois as one of 16 states where the federal government will conduct on-site reviews and targeted investigations of of spending drawn from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. “Experience tells us that the risk for fraud and abuse grows when billions of dollars are going out quickly, eligibility requirements are being established or changed, and new programs are being created,” said Gene Dodaro, acting U.S. comptroller general. “Illinois is an obvious target for federal scrutiny and attention, whether it’s prior to contracts being let or auditing them afterwards,” he said. “Illinois has had numerous projects called into question, for both how contractors were selected and the condition of finished projects.” more ›

Progress Illinois, the left-of-center blog sponsored by the SEIU Illinois State Council, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with both the City of Chicago Corporation Counsel and Gov. Pat Quinn's office to obtain the city's still undisclosed stimulus wishlist. Noting that 3rd Ward Alderman Pat Dowell has gotten nearly every alderman to sign off on a resolution intended to force the mayor to make his plans public, they asked her for an update on the progress that has been made so far.

An exasperated Dowell told us that for the time being, aldermen are still in the dark about how the city could benefit from the federal cash. '[W]e have no idea how much Chicago is going to get from the federal stimulus. We need to know how this money is to be spent.'

A new website was recently launched to help regular citizens keep an eye on how the federal stimulus spending package is being spent. Stimulus Watch is an aggregation of projects listed in U.S. Conference of Mayors' report of its list of "shovel ready" projects that they hope will benefit from the massive federal spending bill. more ›

President Obama takes to the airwaves tonight to pitch the current stimulus plan to the American people but locally lawmakers are eagerly anticipating the possible cash influx. If the $800 billion package passes, Illinois could get a decent-sized chunk of that. According to Sen. Dick Durbin: more ›