Confused about how much economic stimulus money is coming to Colorado and how it will be spent? So are the people overseeing the $2 billion purse.

A group set up by Gov. Bill Ritter to oversee how state agencies spend stimulus money met for the first time Thursday, and the dozen-member board came up with few answers.

The group will act as auditor for how Colorado spends the money, but it won't decide where stimulus dollars go. That responsibility largely is with the governor.

Instead, the oversight panel will meet over the coming months to make sure dollars are spent as intended and will try to give the public a way to see where their money went.

The job is huge. The board - made up of state officials and business leaders - isn't even certain what its role will be. Will it help the public understand how the stimulus works? Assist small businesses that need help applying for funding? And how exactly is it to make sure every penny is spent wisely?

"We're going to be chasing a dog that's running fairly rapidly," conceded Don Elliman, Colorado's economic development director and chairman of the oversight board, appointed by Ritter.

Billed as an organizational meeting, Thursday's huddle was less of a strategy session than it was a chance for board members to launch questions about what they are to do.

Elliman said the board's twin goals are to make certain state agencies spend the money coming their way as intended by Congress, and to help the public understand how the money is being spent.

But the seemingly simple mission comes with many questions.

Who will decide how many jobs are created? How fast will be money be spent? And what about federal spending in Colorado over which the state has no control, such as a Department of Defense project at a base located here?

"We should go through this thing bucket by bucket - and this thing has more buckets than ornaments on the Rockefeller Christmas tree," Elliman said.

Already some of the deepest buckets are headed this way. The Colorado Department of Transportation, for example, expects to start asking for bids next week on some of the $404 million worth of highway and road projects ahead.

Elliman said it hasn't even been decided how often the board will meet or how it will relay its findings to Ritter.