There’s been a lot of news about stimulus reporting the last few weeks. A lot of it has focused on jobs created or saved; that’s understandable since that was a major point of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is the stimulus’ grown-up name. The federal stimulus web site, Recovery.gov,  has posted the first compilation of stimulus grants, loans, and contracts, which covers the first six months under the act. The reports exclude funds allocated directly to individuals through such mechanisms as increased food stamp benefits, extended Unemployment Insurance, Medicaid payments, and tax cuts.

The STAR Coalition of organizations promoting accountability in the recovery praised this effort:

Our groups can now follow the money in ways they never could before and will use it to engage their policy-makers and build a recovery that benefit communities. We will also use the data to actively engage the public to better understand how the Recovery Act is impacting our communities, and how taxpayers can advocate to improve the Recovery Act and other government investments in the future. Read the rest of this entry »

In October, federal agencies, grantees, and contractors who are getting some of the stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or ARRA) money are required to submit six month reports. This post points you to places you can see reports or summaries of them and includes some analysis and further thoughts. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: Occasionally we are re-running blog posts on topical subjects that you may have missed the first time around. Last week, the Tulsa World reported that DVIS (Domestic Violence Interventions Services) of Tulsa has been awarded a $426,335 grant from violence prevention funds that were part of the federal stimulus bill to assist clients with emergency needs. In June we ran this blog post about the important role of federal stimulus funds for domestic violence shelters facing increased demands for services from families in distress: Read the rest of this entry »

Our new Stimulus Update looks at the $52 billion in education funding in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA, better known as the stimulus). The education programs, in contrast to most other ARRA funds coming to state and local governments, mainly consist of a two-year increase to existing programs that are heavy on operating, not capital, costs. Some examples are:

• Increased Pell Grants for college students ($93 million so far in Oklahoma);
• More funding for special education, education for schools serving low-income students, and vocational rehabilitation ($276 million in Oklahoma); and
• Expanding Early Head Start programs and serving more children at existing Head Start centers (at least $28 million in Oklahoma). Read the rest of this entry »

Six months into the federal stimulus program (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA), most of the discussion has centered  on infrastructure projects and the impact on economic recovery and jobs, if any. Today, we’d like to focus on a stimulus program that has the potential to help jump start the economy, and continue paying off years down the road. Read the rest of this entry »

As the debate about the speed and impact of stimulus spending rages on, Good Jobs First is taking on the less glamorous but equally important task of assessing accountability in state spending of funds from the stimulus bill (more formally, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA). They’ve launched the STAR (States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery) Coalition, a national web site that assesses state efforts to inform citizens about ARRA spending.

Accountability is essential for any government program. Taxpayers cannot determine whether their resources are being used appropriately unless they can tell what is being spent, where it is spent, who is benefiting from the spending, and what is being accomplished. Congress and President Obama built unprecedented accountability tools into ARRA. If carried out faithfully, these tools will help us determine not just if the stimulus money is spent fast, but if it is spent right.

This week, STAR released a report that gave states two grades – one for a state’s main ARRA website and one for its reporting on transportation spending. Results are mixed.

Some state ARRA sites support the President’s promise that the $787 billion stimulus plan will be carried out with “an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability.” Other state sites are half-hearted efforts that provide residents little useful data on the largest federal stimulus since the New Deal.

Oklahoma comes out below average in STAR’s ratings. Oklahoma’s main site does a good job of centralizing program information and showing how funds are allocated in the state, but falls short in showing where money is being spent, which projects are being funded, and who is getting contracts. To this, we’d add that the site has an excellent compendium of news releases on the stimulus, but the site is  not always kept up to date.

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) site fares better in STAR’s rating, but still lags behind other states. It provides detail on individual projects and contracts, but offers no summary information on how much is being spent in a county, with a single contractor, or even how much is for new roads vs. resurfacing.

Also this week, OK Policy released its  second Stimulus Update, which evaluates over $700 million in ARRA infrastructure funding in Oklahoma. Nearly $400 million in Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT)  projects, mainly resurfacing of state highways, are under contract and spending has topped $40 million. Federal, state, local, and tribal governments will be replacing buses, rehabilitating airport runways and dams and flood control structures, and expanding water and waste water systems. Infrastructure programs, which make up eight percent of all ARRA spending, can help Oklahoma’s economic recovery and pave the way for economic growth and lower costs in the future. With improvements in our accountability efforts, we’ll be able to tell when and where projects are being funded, who is building them, and what they are accomplishing.

Our stimulus page includes the previous Stimulus Update, as well as our earlier stimulus issue brief and fact sheet and links to valuable ARRA resources.

Last week, State Treasurer Scott Meacham unveiled the the state revenue report for June, 2009. Revenue was below the previous year, for both  the last  month and the fiscal year as a whole, as we reported earlier.

It’s natural to wonder what could happen in the just-started budget year, FY ’10. Even though it will be a month until the first months’ revenue are known, Meacham was willing to speculate:

It appears very likely at this point that Fiscal Year 2010 revenues will be less than
originally estimated by the tax commission. That means a revenue shortfall is probable.

This week, Meacham and others are talking about what to do about it. According to the Tulsa World,

Cutting appropriations to agencies would be the first action. Meacham is asking state agency directors, many of whom are dealing with 7 percent cuts this fiscal year, to look for further reductions because of the likelihood of a revenue shortfall. … If the revenue shortfall is prolonged or steep, budget cuts likely won’t be enough, Meacham said. When cuts start affecting employees and vital services, the rainy day fund has to be considered.

It may be premature to declare a revenue shortfall when we haven’t seen any revenues for FY ’10. While recent trends have been quite discouraging, most economists expect a rebound to take hold soon.A growing economy in the spring of 2010 can make up for some bad months this summer and fall. Further, our Constitution only allows the Legislature to appropriate 95 percent of certified revenues; we can absorb a 5 percent shortfall for the year.

Whether or not there’s a shortfall, though, we can assess the tools we have available and see if we can improve them in a way that helps this year and beyond. We should use these tools–now and in the future–to be sure we maintain adequate and consistent public services for Oklahomans. Here are some suggestions: Read the rest of this entry »

OK Policy is pleased to launch a new monthly Stimulus Update publication. Each month we will take a quick look at one set of federal stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA) programs. Each issue includes a short review of the program and its funding and rules. Then we address the status of the program in Oklahoma: Where are we in the funding process? How do we compare to other states? How do we plan to use the money? How much have we received and spent? Graphs show how funds are allocated and track the speed at which funds are flowing.

Our first issue looks at the two biggest stimulus programs, which provide states with federal funding for education, Medicaid, and other programs to help make up for falling state revenue.You’ll find out how these programs helped maintain state services, which agencies benefited, and how we compare to other states.

There are many other sources of stimulus news and information you may want to be aware of. Our new stimulus page includes links to many sources and we’ll update it as we find new ones. Here are some high points:

• Oklahoma’s state recovery site, http://www.recovery.ok.gov, has been expanded and improved recently. It includes recent agency news releases and links to six state agency recovery pages. Several of these agencies have been improving their sites so taxpayers can get a better idea of how money is being used and so local and nonprofit service providers can apply for appropriate funding.
• Stateline.org, a news service concentrating on state government issues, has created a new page, http://www.stateline.org/live/static/The_Stimulus_and_the_States, which provides charts of how the stimulus is divided up and when it is expected to be spent, along with links to state stimulus oversight efforts and news stories.
• Closer to home, the Tulsa World has created a new stimulus tracker page, which puts all the World stimulus stories in what place, http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/category.aspx?l=stimulus_tracker.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kudos to the Oklahoma Legislature and Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland for taking a small but worthwhile step in helping Oklahomans keep their health insurance. SB 553, authored by Sen. Ron Justice (R-Chickasha) in the Senate and sponsored by Rep. Leslie Osborn (R–Tuttle) of the House, expands the state’s “mini-COBRA” health insurance plan for the newly unemployed. The bill allows Oklahomans who have lost their jobs with small businesses to keep their health insurance for four months and receive a federal subsidy to help pay the premium. The bill has passed both houses and  is headed to Governor Brad Henry’s desk.

COBRA is a federal law that allows a person leaving a job to keep health insurance coverage through their former employer for up to 18 months, if the employee pays full monthly premiums plus an administrative charge. For those who can afford it, COBRA offers a way to keep the same insurance coverage while they seek other work or better insurance options. COBRA does not help all workers, however. Among other gaps, it applies only to firms with 20 or more employees.

Oklahoma and most other states created “mini-COBRA” laws to extend COBRA-like rights to employees of smaller firms. However, most mini-COBRAs are more restrictive than the federal one and Oklahoma’s is amongst the most restrictive of all. Employees are entitled to coverage for only one month after they leave a job.
Read the rest of this entry »

Spending from the $787 billion stimulus bill, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, is underway. Since passage of the bill in February, payroll withholding for most employees has been decreased thanks to the Making Work Pay tax credit, and food stamp and unemployment benefits for those in need have been increased. Most of the attention, however, has focused on funds being allocated through state government.  A recent Oklahoman editorial suggested that as Oklahoma begins to put federal stimulus dollars into projects to fix roads and bridges and other purposes, “it’s time for the public to begin the laborious task of holding government accountable for the billions in stimulus money en route to the states.” We wholeheartedly agree.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a conference hosted by Good Jobs First that was specifically concerned with developing strategies for an accountable recovery. Good Jobs First is working closely with the advocacy organization OMB Watch and with national and state coalitions across the country to help ensure that citizens have access to comprehensive and timely information on stimulus funds. The national partners, known as the Coalition for an Accountable Recovery, and the state partners, known as the States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery (STAR) coalition, have both launched websites that collect key documents and news releases related to the Recovery Act; the STAR website also has a blog.  Both coalitions have a particularly strong interest in watchdogging which companies are benefiting from contracts (and to the extent possible, sub-contracts) funded with stimulus dollars.

Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to the multiple funding streams made available to state governments by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), tribal governments are also in line to receive substantial assistance for programs serving Native Americans. This website of the National Congress of American Indians provides detailed and comprehensive information, including a handy tribal summary spreadsheet (PDF) available for download. As with state governments, tribes will receive some funds through formula allocations, while in other cases, tribal governments will be eligible to apply along with other government entities for competitive grants.

For Oklahoma, tribal funding can amount to considerable sums of money. For example, in the case of housing, Oklahoma’s formula-based allocation allocated to native housing authorities through the Native American Housing Block Grant is $37.4 million, which is considerably more than the $25.1 million going to non-native public housing authorities in Oklahoma through the Public Housing Capital Fund.

A new OK Policy issue brief looks at the federal stimulus funding that is being made available to states that adopt a number of modest reforms to their Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs. As the number of jobless workers claiming UI benefits rises rapidly, Oklahoma’s UI program may be approaching a situation, known as conditional factors,  that automatically triggers cuts in jobless benefits and increases in employer taxes to keep the state’s UI Trust Fund solvent. The stimulus bill would provide Oklahoma $75.9 million that could avert or minimize these tax hikes and benefit cuts, contingent on implementing some worthwhile changes to the UI program that Oklahoma has already largely enacted.

Read our four page brief or see this guide from the National Employment Law Project on the various provisions of the stimulus bill benefiting unemployed workers.