Earl Devaney to resign from Recovery board

Longtime federal auditor Earl Devaney plans to submit his resignation to the White House on Dec. 1 and retire by year’s end, following 41 years of service at federal agencies, according to a Dec. 1 report in the Washington Post’s Federal Eye.

Devaney told The Federal Eye that his plans include retirement in Florida with his wife and possible part-time employment as a consultant or corporate board member.

Since February 2009, Devaney has been serving as the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which is a nonpartisan federal oversight board tracking and publishing information on spending under the $840 billion economic stimulus law. The panel also operates the Recovery.gov website, a searchable platform with maps providing the stimulus spending data to the public.

Previously, he was inspector general at the Interior Department, where he investigated ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff as well as allegations of wrongdoing at the U.S. Minerals Management Service.

He started his career in law enforcement as a Massachusetts police officer, and worked for the U.S. Secret Service for two decades. He was special agent in charge of the Fraud Division when he retired from the Secret Service in 1991. Following that, he became director of criminal enforcement for the Environmental Protection Agency.

At the Recovery board, Devaney was in charge of a team of investigators and inspectors general. In his recent comments on the board's activities, he announced an updated design for Recovery.gov that highlights its mapping features, and also recommended that the federal government adopt a universal identifier system for consistent identification of federal grants.