An investigative checklist

Sarah Cohen Knight Professor of the Practice Duke University August 2011

Investigative reporters usually look for a standard against which to measure a program. That standard is usually what lawmakers claimed would happen when the bill was passed or what agencies say is happening. One difference between reporters and policy analysts is that nuance isnt very important. They are concerned with what regular citizens were led to believe, not the nitty-gritty known by insiders. A classic example is an old US News and World Report story on on-time airline statistics. While everyone else was writing about how many were technically on time, the magazines project revolved around how long it took to get from city to city much longer than in any time since records were kept, even though the planes were on time. As you look into your program, try to keep yourself grounded in the world of the everyman, not the world of the specialist. Heres a checklist of what many reporters do. Its not complete, but it gives you some kind of roadmap. This process is not nearly as linear as it appears here. Youll often get ahead of yourself and have to back up and re-review documents or interviews youve had before in light of new understanding. If you are struggling in a phase, move back one and see whether looking at that material again or gathering more might help. Basic background
A Nexis, Factiva and ProQuest search. I also look at a custom search engine Ive made on Google of investigative sites not included in the services. Your goal is to know what issues have already been identified, what officials say is happening and what concerns have been raised in the past. Look for news at the time of a congressional debate on the program to find promises. GAO and CRS reports on the subject, which often provide a history of both the creation of the program and some of its weaknesses or more controversial issues. At this stage, youre looking for a good background on the program and are less worried about the specific findings in a given report. Google Scholar and other academic databases; Amazon.com and library books. Familiarize yourself with the official website. Look into the interest groups identified in this step, but youll find more later.

What was the program supposed to do?

Attribution: Sarah Cohen / Duke University

Collect promises and warnings from advocates and opponents, esp. during congressional debates. Identify stakeholders (emotional, political, substantive and financial) Study authorizing legislation, entries in Congressional Record, hearings Look for earmarks that undermine the program before it even gets started. Look for lobbying on the bill. If applicable, review budget requests and appropriations hearings. Listen to audio or video of subcommittee proceedings not always in Congressional Record. (With the change in parties, this content often disappears.) Interview lawmakers and advocates / opponents PART reviews. These are old now and were suspended after the Bush administration, but they were useful to see how the agency itself defined success. (results.gov)

How should the program work?

Gather forms and guidelines for grants / Catalog of Federal Assistance, any published criteria Read Federal Register announcements implementing the legislation what forms will they use, what process, how will they choose the grantees or make the formula? Where possible, review public comments on these proposals. Review agency website on the program in depth, clicking on all the links you can find. If possible, look at archives of the agency website from previous administrations and congresses (www.archive.org and www.webharvest.gov from the National Archives.) Interview recipients and agency personnel. Look again at your GAO and CRS reports on the program these always have sections on how it was intended to work. Look for any state or local agency oversight: many programs are funneled through intermediaries. This will tell you where you have to go to find out more. Review one relatively sophisticated or open site for this perspective. Begin thinking about which state you will use as an example if you have to follow the program through a state.

Who has benefitted?

Review several years of the Consolidated Federal Funds Report from the Census to get a broad overview of the spending. Only domestic programs are included. Pay attention to the program and budget codes youll need to follow it through the process. Review the budget database for the previous year, focusing on the historical spending. Extract all of the spending from USASpending.gov for spending on contracts and grants. For grants, look for the requirements using the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance; for contracts, search the FedBizOps archives for requirements.

Attribution: Sarah Cohen / Duke University

Review agency documents on contract or grant awards that have already been released (press releases, members of Congress bragging, corporate press releases) or application of formula results. There should be some level of accountability on the website. Look for individual records, not statistical summaries. FOIA correspondence from members of congress, lobbyists and others to the agency (these are often lettermarks.) Look at the beneficiaries from several angles: on a map, per-capita, by congressional district, by stated purpose (eg, low-income or rural), over time do it by the number and size of grants., looking for what does and doesnt match up with what was supposed to happen. You can use Tableau Public http://www.tableausoftware.com/public// for some of this visualization. Begin thinking about how you would combine this data with something else to identify where it was and wasnt going where youd expect. For example, school lunch spending against poverty rates of children; brownfields cleanup activities against known Superfund sites. If possible, look at state or local government oversight or tracking activities.

Compare what has actually happened to what was supposed to happen

Inspector general reports, especially any that examine particular recipients. Go back to the critical GAO reports and request the backup documents, which the GAO will sometimes release. (Ask for the box contents first this is just one sheet that lists all of the documents it has collected. Then you can just ask for the ones you want.) State auditor and local audit results for any area that you have decided in previous steps to concentrate. You might also look for state-level press releases and announcements of awards. Review single audit reviews from the Federal Audit Clearinghouse (http://harvester.census.gov/sac) Request audit reports from the grants you identify as typical or atypical in the last step. You usually have to FOIA these, but they may get them for you if they like what you are doing. (Contractor performance reports are secret.) Interview current and former congressional oversight committees, especially the investigative staffs. Review oversight and budget hearings for reauthorization or funding. Interview former agency officials. Interview some ultimate service providers, preferably those that are widely acknowledged as successful. They will give you a standard does the program succeed on paper, but fail the regular person? Or are there holes in the system that let bad actors through? Call people immediately in charge of local programs or of giving out money and those who have gotten money. Civil and criminal court cases regarding the program in PACER. Call the parties.

Attribution: Sarah Cohen / Duke University