Five government agencies and businesses in Missouri made the latest non-compliers list for failing to report how they used money from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

ST LOUIS — Five government agencies and businesses in Missouri made the latest non-compliers list for failing to report how they used money from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The list, for the fourth quarter of 2011, identified 418 stimulus-fund recipients that failed to submit reports as required. Thirty-four recipients nationwide did not file reports for the past two cycles, including the Kinloch Police Department.

The list of non-compliers for the first quarter of 2012 has not yet been released.

When asked why they didn’t comply, representatives of the respective Missouri agencies said that either the projects had been completed or the department stopped receiving the money.

A Newton County sheriff’s lieutenant called the accountability measures the “weirdest report.”

Kinloch’s city manager said his municipality stopped receiving stimulus money last year, yet remains on the federal government’s black list.

The Recovery Act, often called the stimulus package, provided $840 billion to help with economic recovery. Through March 31, Missouri entities had received 6,193 awards worth some $4.94 billion.

One of the act’s goals was to make the spending process transparent through strict accountability measures. Agencies that receive the money must file quarterly reports detailing for what the money is being used.

The five Missouri recipients on the black list include Kinloch Police Department and Hollister Department of Public Safety, which got $90,604 and $112,609, respectively, to hire police officers.

The list also includes the Newton County Sheriff’s Office, which received $43,447 for patrol car terminals; Washington County, which was granted $29,476 to upgrade computers and software in its prosecuting attorney’s office; and Patriot Company Inc., awarded a $17,189 contract for a project in New York.

Kinloch City Manager Eric Mason said the police department is no longer getting the stimulus money.

“We discontinued the program with the Department of Justice last year,” Mason told Missouri Watchdog.

In its last report from June 30, Kinloch police reported receiving and using $46,175 to hire a career officer “engaged in community policing activities responding to local needs.”

Mason said the department did not receive the rest of the $90,604, since it canceled its project.

The police department received the funds as part of the COPS Hiring Recovery Program, which helps law-enforcement agencies hire or rehire higher-salaried, veteran officers.

Mason said the city is no longer eligible to receive the money because the officer who would have been employed under the program is ineligible. Mason indicated it was a sensitive personnel issue, and declined to discuss that aspect further.

“I don’t think that was communicated well with the federal government,” he said, noting that the grant predated his tenure as city manager.

Mason said as far as he knows, no report has been filed since the city stopped receiving the stimulus money.

Lt. Rick Geller of the Newton County Sheriff’s Office said his department used its money to install mobile data terminals in its patrol cars. These allow officers to quickly conduct criminal checks and communicate with dispatch.

Geller said the grant, because it was through the Department of Justice, required him to file three quarterly reports to that body and the federal reporting website.

“I called and talked to those people,” he said. “You were just duplicating crap, and I told them that.”

Geller said the department completed the project in November, and he filed all the required paperwork.

“I don’t know why we’re still on the non-compliance list because we’ve sent in all the reports,” he said.

However, the last report on recovery.gov is from Sept. 30, 2011, and shows Newton County as having spent $38,412 of its $43,447 award.

Geller said he has tried to submit a final report, as is required for all of the stimulus projects, and is awaiting assistance from someone at recovery.gov on how to do it.

“I tried to put on there it was final,” he said. “I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that.”

Washington County, Hollister Department of Public Safety and Patriot Company Inc. also were on the most-recent list of non-compliers, but all have since filed reports for the first quarter of this year.

The Washington County prosecuting attorney’s office reported using $3,054.98 of its stimulus money to buy new computers and software for its Karple system, which is used to keep track of cases.

Office manager Kathy Pashia was reluctant to discuss the issue when contacted by Missouri Watchdog.

“I don’t know if I can give you information on office matters,” she said.

The latest report from Hollister Department of Public Safety notes that $88,741 of the $112,609 award has been put to use hiring an officer to investigate felonies and head the neighborhood watch in the White River Mountain area.

Missouri Watchdog contacted the department and was referred to Sgt. Tim Matthews, who did not return two calls Wednesday.

Patriot Company Inc., a Greenwood-based construction business, received its latest contract through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to replace windows at the Robert Holley Center for Agriculture and Health in Ithaca, N.Y. The company’s report for the first quarter of 2012 says the project has been completed.

The company previously had been awarded a $264,721 contract to replace windows at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Fort Meade, S.D.

The Capitol, Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A congressional subcommittee oversight hearing Wednesday in Washington, D.C., will focus on “whether taxpayers are getting their money’s worth” out of $7.2 billion in broadband grants and loans under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Two northern Minnesota projects were singled out in the hearing memo for the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology:  a $1.7 million grant to the Leech Lake Reservation Business Committee and $66 million in federal loans and grants to Lake County, Minnesota.

Congressional investigators noted in the memo that the Leech Lake project was among a number of initiatives that “never got off the ground or have been halted. The Leech Lake Reservation Business Committee in Minnesota declined its $1.7 million grant on the grounds that it would not be able to meet its grant requirements.”

The Lake County project was highlighted as an example of a project that has raised industry concerns about possible overbuilding of existing systems instead of extending service to unserved areas as required by the terms of the federal funding agreement.

Read the full story at FreedomFoundationMN.com.

By Nevada Journal

According to a Department of Interior memo, Enbridge Energy Partners, a Canadian-based company with extensive energy holdings in the U.S. that purchased the southern Nevada plant from Arizona-based First Solar, “can apply for payments of up to 30 percent of the eligible costs of the project — approximately $50 million.”

By Eric Boehm | PA Independent

HARRISBURG — Eight Pennsylvania entities that received more than $10 million in federal stimulus money failed to complete mandatory quarterly reports showing how the money was spent.

The eight recipients — cities, counties, nonprofits and companies in the Keystone State — are listed as non-compliers on a federal website that tracks Recovery Act money and the projects for which it was used. Those entities failed to file reports by the end of last year’s fourth quarter, their requisite deadline.

Those who missed the deadline are listed on a public “Wall of Shame.”

PA Independent tried last week to determine why.

Those that responded generally told the same story — reports were submitted but deadlines were missed for a variety of reasons, including technical difficulties and staff turnover.

Joan Blaustein is director of urban forestry and ecosystem management for Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. She said her organization missed the deadline because an identification code, needed to file electronically, expired.

“We actually weren’t aware that it did expire and we couldn’t get it renewed in time for the submission date,” she said. “Once the date closes for reporting you can’t submit late. They close the website down.”

The Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation got more than $1.7 million for the project, intended to beautify and improve Fairmount Park by removing non-native plants and shrubs.

Blaustein called the project a success and said the final report was submitted in the spring, since the grant’s funding was all used up.

The government has not yet made available reports for the first quarter of 2012.

Roads To Freedom Center for Independent Living, a nonprofit that works with the disabled in Williamsport, got a $347,000 stimulus grant to build and furnish a fitness center.

Renee Sluzalis, the organization’s CEO, said the center missed the end-of-year reporting deadline because of staff turnover and problems with electronic filing.

“We had some miscommunication, and the report was submitted late, but it was submitted,” she said.

The federal $840 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or ARRA, is more commonly referred to as the “stimulus fund.” Congress passed it as a way to boost employment and help the economy recover in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse.

Its success has been debatable.

If the stimulus passed, President Obama’s economic team promised, unemployment would not exceed 8.5 percent, yet it climbed as high as 10 percent in October 2009, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“After three years, the data clearly shows that the president’s claims have underestimated the level of unemployment by roughly three million people,” Veronique de Rugy, a senior researcher at the Mercatus Center, a free market economic think tank at George Mason University, wrote in February.

Defenders of the stimulus spending have argued that it helped prevent economic Armageddon and far higher levels of unemployment as the nation recovered from the worst recession in 80 years.

Opponents have criticized the wastefulness of some stimulus projects and the pointlessness of others, while economists have said the overall impact of the stimulus is minimal in terms of economic growth.

Between February 2009 when the stimulus was passed and the end of 2011, the ARRA directed more than $9.4 billion to recipients in Pennsylvania through more than 8,300 grants, loans and government contracts, according to the Recovery.gov website launched to track the stimulus funds.

A total of 5,869 jobs were “created or saved” by money sent to the Keystone State through the stimulus. That’s about $1.6 million spent for every job “created or saved”.

Blaustein said the park project in Philadelphia created jobs because the city contracted with landscapers who otherwise may not have had work last summer, when much of the Fairmount Park project was completed.

Head Start Learning Tree in Philadelphia blamed staff turnover for its tardiness.

The early education provider used a $476,000 stimulus grant to expand its services into a new part of South Philadelphia by buying space, hiring staff and buying materials, said Joanne Crooms, the group’s new executive director, who took over in early 2012.

She’s embarrassed by the missed deadline.

“If somebody gives you money — it doesn’t matter if it is the federal government or a private foundation — and they say a report has to be turned in on a certain day, my belief is that you have to have that on time,” she said. “If we miss any more reports, I take personal responsibility.”

Other recipients in Pennsylvania listed as delinquent failed to return calls seeking for comment. Those projects are:

• A $4.5 million grant through the federal Department of Homeland Security to Delaware County, which subcontracted with the Boeing Corp. to improve security at ports in the county.
• A $1.2 million grant to Somerset Villas Inc., which operates Section 8 housing in Philadelphia, to preserve housing units for elderly and disabled people. This report has been non-compliant for two consecutive quarters, according to the stimulus tracker website.
•  A $1 million contract with L.R. Costanzo Inc., a Scranton-based construction for a restoration project at the Grey Towers National Historic Site in Pike County.
• A $500,000 grant to the city of McKeesport in Allegheny County to pay for utilities and rent for low-income people.
• A $37,000 contract with EwingCole, a Philadelphia-based engineering and design firm, to install replacement windows in the town of Ithaca, N.Y.

In other states, some recipients have complained of excessive reporting requirements for the stimulus projects, but Blaustein said the reports were no more complicated than those concerning most federal money — all require detailed filings, she added.

“It’s typical of federal grants, which are quite extensive in their reporting and tracking,” she said.

Crooms said the most important thing was accurately reporting how public money was spent.

“Whenever you get money from the federal government or the state, you’re going to have a lot of paperwork,” she said. “We’re spending the people’s money, and the public has a right to know how it is spent.”

FAIRWAY — The reports are in.

We promise, say three Kansas entities that got about $453,000 in federal stimulus — or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — grants.

The entities, in Leavenworth, Topeka and Burden, all received federal grants in 2009 for money they pledged to use to create jobs, fix public infrastructure and help pull the nation out of the Great Recession.

Speaking of promises, the White House said it would show America how the money was put to work, so to speak, setting up a website — recovery.gov. 

Listed on the website were the three Kansas entities, which were among 375 recipients of stimulus money that, the U.S. government said, had failed to account for the money and were listed as non-compliers, as of January, the most recent reporting cycle.

The Leavenworth Police Department got a $263,200 federal stimulus grant; the Topeka Independent Living Resource Center, $189,545; and the City of Burden, a community of 500 in south central Kansas, received $117,253.

The respective lapses, each entity says, was a one-time occurrence that has since been corrected by subsequent reports covering January through March of this year.

“We’re up to date; we just filed our report for first quarter 2012,” said Maj. Don Nicodemus, the assistant police chief in Leavenworth. “We missed the deadline before because we were in the middle of transition between me and the person who did the report before.”

Leavenworth police, the Leavenworth county attorney’s office and the city of Lansing are using the grant money to install high-tech electronic police dispatching and records-management systems in those communities, which have the most state and federal prisons in Kansas.

The Topeka center missed the deadline because executives were uncertain about some funding sources, and the center failed to finish its budgets on time, said Amy Hyten, associate director of the nonprofit advocate for the disabled.

The center is using its grant money to provide part-time jobs for the equivalent of 3.8 full-time workers and, ironically, some new computer equipment and software to streamline federal reports.

“We caught up when we filled out our first quarter reports in April,” Hyten said.

Burden is using its slice of the federal stimulus money to buy tracking equipment and train officers to use it, said Will Tatum, the police chief there. He said Burden also missed deadlines for its fourth quarter 2011 report because those hit just as he was taking over for his predecessor.

“It was the first thing they dumped in my lap,” Tatum said. “We’re caught up now.”

None of the three Kansas grant recipients nor anyone else among the other governments or businesses that failed to file the financial reports is likely to be punished, said Cheryl Arvidson, deputy communications director for the federal Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, formed by the White House to keep tabs on the spending.

“In extreme cases, someone who consistently failed to report might have trouble getting money from the government in the future,” Arvidson said.

“But there is no punishment in the Recovery Act for not reporting” she said. “That is why we post their names online.”

In all, Kansas had nearly 3,200 recipients that got about $2.6 billion in Recovery Act loans, grants and contracts.

Kansas’ share was part of some $840 billion in stimulus money that the legislation — ARRA — made available across the country. President Barack Obama said the act would help save or create 3.5 million jobs and trim the nation’s then-current 8 percent unemployment rate to 7.25 percent by the end of 2010.

Did it work? Well, not exactly, says one researcher.

“After three years, the data clearly show that the president’s claims have underestimated the level of unemployment by roughly three million people (nearly 2 percentage points) on average each year,” Veronique de Rugy, a senior researcher at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, wrote in a February review of the stimulus program’s results. Continue reading at Kansas Reporter.

Minnesota Congressman Leads Effort to End Green Energy Stimulus Funding Behind Controversial Goodhue County Wind Farm

An initiative led by Congressman John Kline (MN-R) would do more than terminate the federal stimulus renewable energy program that funded the bankrupt $535 millionnotorious Solyndra solar power project. If successful, it would also knock the wind out of a key funding source for one of the nation’s most controversial wind projects –T. Boone Pickens’ proposed $180 million AWA Goodhue Wind farm in Kline’s congressional district.

Last week Kline circulated a letter urging his House colleagues to support the immediate elimination of Section 1603 renewable energy grants. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would allow the so-called green grants to expire. Since tax provisions such as Section 1603 must originate in the House, this effectively curtails the program.

“Given the economic challenges facing our country, we cannot in good conscience use taxpayer dollars to subsidize industries that have failed to demonstrate proven results to help our long-term energy strategy,” Kline said in a release.

Many wind and other renewable energy projects depend on the Section 1603 grants, which were previously slated for elimination after 2010. Yet Congress extended the green energy cash grants for another year at the cost of an additional $3 billion, bringing the total spent thus far to $9.2 billion.

AWA Goodhue Wind, the developer of the 78 megawatt wind farm in southeastern Minnesota, may be among those with the most to lose if the congressman’s effort is successful. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) both support the Goodhue Wind project.

“I think it’s a huge deal. I think the tides are turning,” said Kristi Rosenquist, anopponent of the wind project. “Congress is seeing we shouldn’t just keep pouring cash into an abyss for something that’s completely ineffective. I’m hopeful that Congress is recognizing this money does not create very many jobs and the jobs it does create are at a huge expense.”

The southeastern Minnesota wind project was cited during the debate as an example of another aspect of the stimulus program’s toxic impact on taxpayers.

“While the goal of the program is to increase the use of renewable energy, including wind, I have escalating concerns about the unintended consequences of the program. For example, in Minnesota, a wind developer is working to establish a farm with more than 50 wind turbines despite strong concerns vocalized by hundreds of residents the program is slated to serve,” Kline wrote in his recent letter.

The Goodhue County proposal is eligible for about $50 million under the grant. There’s just one catch. Construction must start before the end of 2011in order for the project to qualify for the $50 million in funding.

While the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has issued the project a permit, the developers must obtain local township permits and to submit an “avian and bat protection plan” for state approval. With less than three weeks to go, it appears increasingly unlikely that construction will get underway in time to qualify, should the stimulus program fails to be renewed.

Read more…

Texas Watchdog

What was to have been a Frankenstein-like lightning strike to the economy and to unemployment, the Weatherization Assistance Program today in Texas has spent more than $226,000 on each of 1,041 jobs the program is said to have created or saved.

The director of the state Department of Housing and Community Affairs overseeing the nearly $327 million stimulus program to fix up low-income homes has stepped down. At least three of the original 44 local organizations administering the program have been shut down for chronic mismanagement and concerns about fraud.

The state has taken funding from 13 of the programs and redistributed it to more efficient organizations, while the federal government says it will take back tens of millions from the state if it fails to spend the money quickly.

And in a review by Texas Watchdog of state monitoring reports over the past nine months, state inspectors have found administrative overspending, careless workmanship and millions of dollars in prohibited and questionable spending by contractors working for more than two dozen of the local groups.

Housing and Community Affairs officials asked that they be able to respond to questions about the inspection reports in writing. As of Wednesday afternoon, agency spokesman Gordon Anderson said, “Staff is working on responding to these questions right now, but these same employees have – and continue to be – pulled off of all other tasks throughout the day to assist in responding to inquiries from other governmental entities regarding the state’s response to the numerous wildfires still burning across Texas. This takes a priority over everything else at the moment.”

As President Obama prepares to address the nation with a request that taxpayers come up with another $300 billion for a federal jobs program, it is worth taking a hard look at one of the original jobs programs in the $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Read more…

Administration officials continue “Recovery Summer” tour

Continuing the Administration’s “Recovery Summer” tour today, the President visits Chicago; Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visits Columbus, OH; Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan visits Fairfax County, Virginia; and Federal Highways Deputy Administrator Greg Nadeaus visits Brownsville, Texas.

In preparation for Administration officials’ travel to discuss the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the “stimulus”) and Washington’s plan for the road ahead, we take a closer look at the current economic conditions in these four states.

Illinois

Illinois’s share of the $862-billion “stimulus” bill awarded: $8,467,750,000

(=3.9% of the $219 billion that has already been given to states).

Illinois’s share of the population = 4.2%

Illinois’s unemployment rate was 8.7% when the “stimulus” was enacted in February 2009; today it is 10.4%.

Illinois’s 10.4% unemployment rate is higher than the national average of 9.5%.

Illinois lost 155,000 jobs between February 2009 when the “stimulus” was enacted and June 2010.

For FY2011, Illinois’s estimated budget shortfall is $13.5 billion, as of 7/15/2010.

Illinois’s number of foreclosed homes was 14,218 when the “stimulus” was enacted; today that number has grown to 14,732.

Example of “stimulus” spending:

Northwestern University received $712,883 to develop a model of machine-generated humor.  The project will “create intelligent comedic performance agents and deploy them both on- and off-line for the enjoyment and illumination of everyday citizens.”

Ohio

Ohio’s share of the $862-billion “stimulus” bill awarded: $7,874,070,000

(=3.6% of the $219 billion that has already been given to states).

Ohio’s share of the population = 3.8%

Ohio’s unemployment rate was 9.1% when the “stimulus” was enacted in February 2009; today it is 10.5%.

Ohio’s 10.5% unemployment rate is higher than the national average of 9.5%.

Ohio lost 131,500 jobs between February 2009 when the “stimulus” was enacted and June 2010.

For FY2011, Ohio’s estimated budget shortfall is $3 billion, as of 7/15/2010.

Ohio’s number of foreclosed homes was 11,321 when the “stimulus” was enacted; today that number has fallen to 10,639.

Example of “stimulus” spending:

$34 million will be going to Ohio’s John Weld Peck Federal Building in Cincinnati, which is only 46 years old, for a “window makeover.”

Virginia

Virginia’s share of the $862-billion “stimulus” bill awarded: $5,425,020,000

(=2.5% of the $219 billion that has already been given to states).

Virginia’s share of the population = 2.6%

Virginia’s unemployment rate was 6.1% when the “stimulus” was enacted in February 2009; today it is 7.0%.

Virginia’s 7.0% unemployment rate is lower than the national average of 9.5%.

Virginia lost 39,500 jobs between February 2009 when the “stimulus” was enacted and June 2010.

For FY2011, Virginia’s estimated budget shortfall is $1.3 billion, as of 7/15/2010.

Virginia’s number of foreclosed homes was 4,823 when the “stimulus” was enacted; today that number has grown to 5,855.

Examples of “stimulus” spending:

$80,000 of stimulus funds financed a pedestrian bridge to nowhere in West Virginia.

$51 million was allocated to the Poff Federal building in Roanoke, Virginia for ‘green’ adjustments, such as new windows and lighting.

Texas

Texas’s share of the $862-billion “stimulus” bill awarded: $14,307,390,000

(=6.5% of the $219 billion that has already been given to states).

Texas’s share of population = 8.1%

Texas’s unemployment rate was 6.8% when the “stimulus” was enacted in February 2009; today it is 8.2%.

Texas’s 8.2% unemployment rate is lower than the national average of 9.5%.

Texas lost 57,700 jobs between February 2009 when the “stimulus” was enacted and June 2010.

For FY2011, Texas’s estimated budget shortfall is $4.6 billion, as of 7/15/2010.

Texas’s number of foreclosed homes was 10,527 when the “stimulus” was enacted; today that number has grown to 12,175.