It’s a challenge far removed from the expense-minded initiatives most CFOs have toiled on over the last 18 months. And it’s one any number of finance leaders would likely envy. However, the act of spending speedily is apparently no small feat, especially when your consequent shareholders are the president of the United States and the members of the U.S. Congress.

“We need to get those dollars spent quickly so that we can put people back to work, and they need to be spent well, so that the investments we make are lasting investments,” explains Department of Energy CFO Steve Isakowitz, who was first appointed DOE CFO by President George W. Bush in 2007 and reappointed last year to that role by President Obama. Isakowitz says that the DOE has never faced a bigger challenge in terms of tracking taxpayer dollars.

“Normally, in a given year we would spend a few hundred million dollars and these would go to the states. Now, under the Recovery Act, $11 billion will be flowing out, and that’s just an unprecedented level,” explains Isakowitz, who says that the challenge faced by the DOE goes beyond the volume of dollars DOE captured, a total of $36 billion, from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“Unlike the past where we were largely just tracking the checks to the states, we have an expectation upon ourselves to go beyond and understand how the states are putting those dollars to use, not just that we’re giving them the money, but in fact that they are taking those dollars, hiring people, and getting work done. So that has required a lot of reporting and coordination with the states,” says Isakowitz, who underscores how the challenge of job creation requires working collaboratively with each of the 50 states.

Says Isakowitz: “We feel that if we don’t do job creation right, the Chinese or India will.” ###