Companies offer help with managing stimulus dollars

The number of companies marketing solutions to help agencies manage dollars from the economic stimulus law is growing.

The latest two are Acumen Solutions Inc. and IBM Corp.

Acumen has launch a cloud computing solutions built on the Salesforce.com platform. IBM also is offering a Web-based solution that uses business intelligence and performance management technologies.

IBM has sold the service to the state of Arkansas, which expects to get $569.9 million in stimulus money during the next six months, company officials said. Arkansas will be the first to use IBM's Economic Recovery Fund Tracking Technology, as the company is calling it.

The IBM solution has dashboards that let government managers track individual program performance against allocated budgets, and adjust plans as needed, the company said. For example, managers will get an alert if a project is using funds faster than the work is being completed.

The Acumen solution, which the company has named START for Stimulus Tracking and Recipient Transparency, includes training and consulting services for a 30-day launch. The company is targeting agencies that are struggling with how to track, manage and comply with the requirements for the money mandated by the Obama Administration, the company said.

The White House has standards for accountability, oversight and transparency of the stimulus funds that agencies must comply with.

The Acumen solution includes block grant program data for each agency. It also supports the aggregation of data from funding recipients as well as a quarterly report function.

The dashboards and management reporting also complies with Office of Management and Budget guidelines, the company said.