Recovery pages on Agency Websites

To facilitate transparency and reporting, agencies must by Feb 25, 2009 establish a page on their existing website dedicated to the Recovery Act (i.e., www.agency.gov/recovery), which will link to Recovery.gov and will provide a single portal for all agency-specific information related to the Act.

See:

Department of Commerce

Department of Agriculture

Department of Energy

Department of Health and Human Services

In order to facilitate transparency to the public, agencies must follow some minimum common formats for their Recovery Act pages. These include:

• Page titles. To help the public find the information via commercial and government search engines, agencies should use a consistent page title for their main Recovery Act page ("Agency X Information Related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009").
• Main headings. Each agency's Recovery Act key entry page should include the following main headings:
  • "Overview of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17th, 2009. It is an unprecedented effort to jumpstart our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st century. The Act is an extraordinary response to a crisis unlike any since the Great Depression, and includes measures to modernize our nation's infrastructure, enhance energy independence, expand educational opportunities, preserve and improve affordable health care, provide tax relief, and protect those in greatest need."
  • "Implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act)". Agencies should include a short paragraph or bullets giving an overview of implementation of the Recovery Act for your agency.
  • "Agency Plans and Reports". This section should include agency plans and reports as required by this guidance, the Recovery Act, or as determined by the agency. This includes agency and program specific reports required by the Recovery Act.
  • "Learn more about our programs". Agencies should use this section to highlight program plans and other programmatic activities. There are no specific formatting requirements for this section.
• Prominent link to Recovery.gov Agencies should include the "Recovery.gov" graphic prominently on their Recovery pages, linked to www.recovery.gov. Agencies can find the recovery graphic at https://max.omb.gov/community/x/7QCtDw.
• Legislation. Agencies should include a link to the final legislation on their main Recovery page.
• How to Apply. Agencies should have prominent links to Grants.gov and FBO.gov so that people and entities that want to apply or bid for grants, contracts, loans or loan guarantees have a clear and consistent avenue to learn more and act.
• Link to agency Inspector General (IG) website. Include a link to the IG's websites to allow for fraud reporting and easy access to IG reports.
• Transparency & reporting. Agencies will also be using the web for transparency and reporting that is required for compliance with the Recovery Act. Please see Appendix 1 for more information.

Best practices

Agencies should have a prominent link to their Recovery Act key entry page from their home page and from other relevant sections of their site where visitors are likely to look for this information. For example, agencies should link to their Recovery Act section from their "Performance and Budget" page and their "Grants" page, where applicable. Agencies should also link to their Recovery Act page from relevant program areas that are receiving funding from Recovery Act.

• Content should be written in plain language and follow government-wide best practices for plain language (see: http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/managing_content/writing_and_editing.shtml).
• Agencies should ensure that all content, including printable reports, is accessible to people with disabilities and meets requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as well as any agency specific Section 508 procedures. Agencies should ensure that large documents are presented in a way for users to easily scan their contents and download them.
• To ensure maximum transparency and accountability, agencies should provide contact information for the person or office responsible for maintaining their agency's Recovery Act content. Agencies should also provide contact information for the office of the senior accountable agency official responsible for Recovery Act activities.
• As they develop their web content, agencies should follow general government-wide web best practices developed by the Federal Web Managers Council, published on WebContent.gov: http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/reqs_bestpractices/best_practices.shtml