Connecticut school districts, for instance, have used millions in stimulus funding to help balance their budgets after the state experienced its own financial problems.
The Meriden school district received $7.7 million in stimulus dollars to cover operational costs and $934,000 for special education and other programs. The district estimates the money preserved 133.81 jobs and created five new jobs.
"This would have been a fiscal and educational disaster without this sum of money," said Glen A. Lamontagne, Meriden's assistant superintendent for finance.
Had the money not been there, he said, the district would have faced a shortfall of eight or nine percent of its budget, which would have resulted in significant staff cuts. It is impossible to say, however, how many employees would have been eliminated in that situation.
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"It should be very, very clear that the stimulus money is not providing anything permanent in the way of job creation or job saving," he said. "It's just temporarily providing some relief."
Stimulus funding certainly helped the state and local governments meet revenue shortfalls this year. The state used federal stimulus money from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund to cover about 14 percent of its annual Educational Cost Sharing grant to towns and cities. The money was a lifesaver for the state, which was facing disastrous revenue shortfalls.
While many envisioned the stimulus as something similar to the "New Deal," which helped fund projects such as bridges on the Wilbur Cross and Merritt Parkways, much of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been used as a fiscal safety net, said Matthew Fritz, a special assistant to the governor who tracks stimulus spending.
"Infrastructure is 20 percent of the overall recovery act package," said Fritz, a Wallingford native and son of state Rep. Mary Fritz, D-Wallingford. "A lot of the money is in safety net measures and stabilization measures so states wouldn't have to drastically reduce services."
The stimulus package requires recipients to calculate how many jobs they retained or created with the funding. The resulting job figures have proven to be problematic, with a recent Associated Press review finding reporting errors in 5,000 of the 30,000 jobs credited to the stimulus, based on reports at www.recovery.gov. The White House vowed to release better data in the near future.
Fritz said part of the problem is that different funding agencies used different methodologies for calculating job numbers. It must also be kept in mind, he said, that job data is expressed in terms of full-time employees. A two-month, part-time job created by the stimulus, for instance, would show up as a fraction in the data.
Fritz estimates that more than 10,000 people in Connecticut have received paychecks or funding of some sort through the stimulus program.
The stimulus has indeed created new initiatives in both the private and public sectors. Looking over an array of scientific instruments Thursday, chemical engineer Mike Niedzwiecki of Proton Energy Systems in Wallingford conducted tests on a material that could one day boost hydrogen's use as a clean energy source.
Niedzwiecki is at work on a research project being funded by a $150,000 National Science Foundation grant, which was ultimately derived from the stimulus package. The company is working with Penn State University to find a cheaper and more efficient component to be used in electrolysis, the process in which water is converted into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen is then used in fuel cells as an energy source.
Niedzwiecki, who began at Proton shortly after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in May, said he is happy that some of the stimulus money is being used for long-term objectives, such as alternative energy projects.
"I think it's great," he said.
Most new initiatives are government-based capital projects.
For instance, the town of Southington is moving ahead on the expansion of the Rails to Trails Linear Park using a $3.3 million stimulus grant. Planned construction for the first phase of the project has allowed low bidder Schultz Corp., of Plymouth, to keep its staff of 15 on the payroll over the winter, according to company president Bill Schultz.
Employees from All State Construction, Inc., of Farmington, have been at work at Meriden's City Hall installing a new boiler, which is being paid for by a $546,000 energy grant to the city. The Meriden Housing Authority will also hire contractors for the construction of electrical generators at the Community Towers complex on Willow Street. The authority received $898,000 in stimulus money toward the project.
Wallingford has received $971,000 in stimulus money through HUD's "small cities" grant program. The money will allow the Wallingford Housing Authority to conduct major renovations at its Ulbrich Heights complex.
Among local stimulus grants, the biggest private recipient was Carabetta, Inc. The Meriden-based housing company received $2.5 million for rental assistance subsidies, known as Section 8. Carabetta reported that the funding helped retain the 98 employees that run its various housing complexes throughout the state.
While that job retention number sounds great, the company would have received the same funding from a standard Congressional spending package if the stimulus was never signed into law.
"We are the recipient of a considerable amount of the stimulus funds, but we would otherwise have received those same funds through appropriations to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development," said Bill Stetson, senior vice president of the company, headquartered on Pratt Street.
Indeed, HUD for years has used standard government appropriations to meet rental assistance contracts with affordable housing providers, said agency spokeswoman Andrea Mead. This year, however, the stimulus package was used to meet those obligations.
"It just provides a mechanism for HUD to meet those contracts," she said. "It's just a different source of funding than there is normally."
Funding the rental assistance program through the stimulus, however, allowed HUD to make the rental assistance payments in a more punctual manner than usual, according to Mead and Stetson. In previous years, rental assistance payments were often late.
Stetson said the company will soon take advantage of a stimulus-funded tax credit program to renovate 232 units of affordable housing in New London. The $16 million project, he said, will be a major boon to the economy, creating an estimated 300 jobs. He added that large scale capital projects have a positive ripple effect on the economy that is hard to calculate.
Funding to private agencies in Meriden, Wallingford, Cheshire and Southington was relatively limited. After Carabetta, Proton received the next highest grant at $150,000, and EnviroMed Inc., of Meriden, received $34,980 in stimulus money to conduct paint inspections and lead risk assessments.
gmoore@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2275
