To help prevent the substitution of federal funds for state, local, or private funds, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) contains maintenance of effort and similar provisions requiring that recipients maintain certain levels of spending for selected programs. This report provides information on selected programs in the Recovery Act with maintenance of effort or similar provisions, the guidance federal agencies have issued to implement these requirements, and how responsible federal agencies are in determining whether recipients meet these requirements. To conduct this work, Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified programs in the Recovery Act that contain a new maintenance of effort or similar provision; account for at least $4 billion in appropriations by agency; and collectively account for about $100.5 billion of the $106.8 billion in Recovery Act appropriations with these provisions. For these selected programs, GAO analyzed program documents and interviewed federal and state officials. GAO recommends that Education take further action to enhance transparency by requiring states to include an explanation of changes to maintenance of effort levels in their State Fiscal Stabilization Fund application resubmissions. Two appendices are included: (1) Objectives, Scope, and Methodology; and (2) GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments. (Contains 4 tables, 1 figure and 31 footnotes.)