MANCHESTER – Concerned citizens who tried to track their tax dollars on the White House's Recovery Act Web site would have been confused to learn that New Hampshire had not two, but six congressional districts.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February to give a boost to the faltering economy, required recipients file a report by Sept. 30 detailing how much they had received, what they had done with it, and how many jobs these funds saved or created. When the more than 130,000 reports were posted on the Recovery.gov Web site two weeks later, the information contained some mistakes. Most noticeably, it showed funds had been sent to a number of congressional districts across the country that do not exist.

Until yesterday afternoon, the Web page dedicated to New Hampshire's portion of the stimulus package showed most of the money went to the 1st and 2nd congressional districts, which actually do exist. But $1.4 million also went to the 6th District and more than $1 million went to the 4th District, which do not. Recovery.gov also showed funds distributed to New Hampshire's 27th and 00th congressional districts.

►Follow the money: NH dollars detailed (5)
►The White House's Recovery.gov Web site
►New Hampshire's Office of Economic Stimulus Web site

The Web site was updated yesterday afternoon to include only the 1st and 2nd districts as well as an "unassigned congressional district."

The phantom districts were attributed to human error, but Republicans say it's yet another example of how the $787 billion program has failed to deliver all that was promised.

Sen. Judd Gregg, in a statement released yesterday, said these errors just add to the Obama administration's lack of credibility about the success of the stimulus package.

"If this administration cannot properly track billions of dollars in so-called stimulus spending, as well as ensure that these funds aren't being wasted, then Americans should seriously question how it will manage the trillions of dollars earmarked for the Democrats' proposed health care reforms," Gregg said.

NHGOP Communications Director Ryan Williams said in a statement released Tuesday that the residents of the 00th District should be proud their representative helped create the thousands of jobs listed on Recovery.gov.

"The rest of New Hampshire should throw their members -- (Democratic Reps.) Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes -- out of public office and back into the terrible jobs market they have created," Williams said.

On the New Hampshire version of the blog that initially reported the story, NewHampshireWatchdog.org, former Republican congressional candidate Grant Bosse mocked the inclusion of the 00th Congressional District, joking that it "is presumably where former Celtic Hall of Famer Robert Parish lives," a reference to the player's now-retired jersey number.

G. Edward DeSeve, assistant to the vice president and special advisor on the implementation of the Recovery Act, said in a statement issued Tuesday that the mistakes are silly, yet unacceptable.

"Some filers, working with the new system, punched in the wrong congressional district, and some just got the data wrong," said DeSeve. "About 10 percent of those folks who were supposed to file a report haven't filed it yet."

Hodes said he is watching the issue closely as a member of the House Oversight Committee, which is charged with monitoring how stimulus money is spent. "There is no question that this was a serious mistake and an example of sloppy record-keeping by the administration," said Matt House, Hodes' press secretary. "Congressman Hodes believes we need real answers and an accurate picture of the situation that working families are facing."