The U.S. Government Accountability Office has just released its second report on the progress of the Treasury Department’s in implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Out of a possible $700 billion to be allocated under the program, about $294 billion had been distributed as of January 23, 2009, according to the report.

We have been trying to keep up, creating profiles of the institutions who have received funds. So far we have managed to do so for about 120. Those profiles and our other products on the bailout are available on our website . Many of the larger institutions receiving TARP funds have been coming under fire in recent weeks for a variety of reasons: excessive executive compensation , exorbitant spending , and just downright foolishness . So, we feel, the more exposure the better.

The GAO report is an objective assessment of the job that Treasury is doing both in administering the funds, as well as how it is doing in overseeing how those funds are being spent by their recipients. GAO gives Treasury measured kudos in addressing some of the shortcomings highlighted in the first oversight report released in early December 2008. But GAO does conclude that Treasury is still lax in addressing some important tasks. 

First, GAO concludes that though Treasury has taken steps towards better tracking TARP funds among larger institutions, it is remiss in not implementing mechanisms to track all funds, noting that,

“While the monthly survey is a step toward greater transparency and accountability for the largest institutions, we continue to believe that additional action is needed to better ensure that all participating institutions are accountable for their use of the funds. Without more frequent information on all participants, Treasury will have little timely information about the effectiveness of the overall program and the changing condition of the institutions and may limit the ability of its newly created team of analysts to analyze how the infusions are being used by the institutions and the effectiveness of the program.” (p. 73)

And second, the report finds that Treasury “has not yet developed a strategic approach to explain how its various programs work together to fulfill TARP’s purposes or how it will use the remaining TARP funds.”

There’s a lot more detail and additional conclusions and findings in the full report, and we recommend at least taking a look at the summary “Highlights” page. In the meantime we will continue to put up bank profiles to help people get an idea of the backgrounds of the institutions receiving TARP funds, and will continue to work with others to keep the pressure on Treasury to increase accountability and transparency of the bailout.