By Stephen Johnson

Reston, Va. – The Obama Administration’s $787 billion stimulus package – the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) – will spur $101 billion in spending on energy, health and government infrastructure IT, according to Teresa Bozzelli, COO and managing director of Government Insights, a Falls Church, Virginia-based consulting firm.

Bozzelli and other experts who track government spending for private sector clients spoke on Thursday at an event focused on government technology priorities in the stimulus package sponsored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC).

The event attracted nearly 150 attendees, most of them representing companies trying to win contracts with federal, state and local government agencies.

Bozzelli estimated that the stimulus package will provide $77.6 billion in spending on energy IT, $21.1 billion in health IT and $2.5 billion on government IT.

Tough new reporting regulations
Bozzelli said that tough new reporting regulations on transparency and accountability will pose both risks and rewards for companies doing business with the government, a view shared by other speakers.

Tim Dowd, President and CEO of Reston, Virginia-based INPUT — a firm that, like Government Insights, helps companies develop federal, state and local government business and helps government agencies achieve their contracting objectives — said that government agencies must publish spending and infrastructure investment plans on a public Web site www.recovery.gov.

“The newly created Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board will monitor reporting, verify competitive requirements and investigate spending and management performance,” Dowd said.

“It will also fund the oversight activities of each agency’s Inspector General and the General Accounting Office.” Dowd quipped that the Board is already known around Washington as the “Rat” Board.

David Beightol, Managing Principal of Washington, DC-based Dutko Government Markets, told the group that health IT spending under the stimulus package will focus on reducing and computerizing the nation’s healthcare system to cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes and reduce costs.

Much to be spent at local, state level
But he cautioned that the rollout of health IT spending will be take significantly longer (12 to 18 months) than many other portions of the stimulus package: “Most health IT vendors should not expect to see a significantly financial impact until early to mid 2010.”

INPUT’s Dowd said that the federal agencies that have the most stimulus money to spend on their own IT projects are the Departments of Energy, Health and Human Services (HHS), Defense and Commerce.

Dowd, like Bozzelli and Beightol, also stressed that much of the stimulus package’s IT money will be spend at the state and local level.

© 2009, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.