The Recovery Board is taking an important step today by launching a new website to track the $10 billion in new federal education jobs fund aid that was authorized by Congress in August.

Don’t expect any bells and whistles. The new site, federaltransparency.gov, will start out providing basic information -- like the amount awarded to each state and territory, money awarded to each recipient, number of jobs funded and project status. Maps and other interactive elements will come later. Although this additional money could have been added to the Recovery.gov site, the decision was made to separate these new dollars from the ones awarded in February 2009.

This is one of the clearest signs that the Recovery Board may find its responsibilities growing beyond the Recovery Act. Over the last year and a half, it has learned a lot about collecting and reporting information and has significantly altered expectations about government transparency.

Although there are still plenty of stimulus dollars to track, gradually that job will fade out. Federaltransparency.gov, provides an ongoing way to follow any federal grants that the Recovery Board may be asked to monitor going forward.

Last week, we had a conversation with Earl Devaney, Recovery Board chairman, and he was clearly thinking about the future of government transparency and the lessons learned from the vast Recovery Act reporting effort. “Politically speaking, on the hill, you would find fans of what we do on both sides of the aisle. They like the website because it gives them information they don’t ordinarily have.”

The board is currently scheduled to sunset in 2013.  “Do you let it expire or let it live on, reconstituted? It would be smart, government wide, to keep this operation going to provide accountability and transparency,” says Devaney