Stimulus
New Reports Detail Recovery Act Programs and Job Creation
The education, homeless assistance, and career development sectors all got a significant boost from Recovery Act funds in the last quarter of 2009, according to reports released on Recovery.gov. More than 28,000 jobs were created or saved between October and the end of the year due to contracts and grants stemming from the Recovery Act, with a majority of those jobs created by grants for education entities, including Head Start and Early Head Start programs and special education. The reports cover only grants, contracts, and loans during the last quarter of 2009, so they do not include economic activity created by the tax breaks, entitlements, and unemployment insurance contained in the Recovery Act.
Keep reading for more on the jobs, the data, and the programs.
Texas created more jobs than all but three states during the last quarter of Recovery Act spending, an improvement from its tenth-place finish in the first round of reporting. The single largest Recovery Act job creator in Texas last quarter was the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, a pot of more than $3 billion that was allocated to improve educational outcomes and equality while ensuring that no services were cut because of state and local budget gaps. More than 12,000 teachers, administrators, and others had their jobs saved or created during the reporting period. Other funding streams dedicated to education were responsible for thousands more jobs; for example, 250 jobs were spread across 50 Head Start and Early Head Start programs across the state.
When the first reports came out last October, we highlighted Department of Labor (DOL) programs that had created almost 5,800 jobs to that point, many of which were green jobs. Similar data is found in these latest reports, with DOL work programs, Work-Study placements, and Americorps expansions combining to connects thousands more people with good jobs. The AmeriCorps projects are funding hundreds of people as they engage in community service in locations across the state, doing work with homeless populations, helping kids prepare for college, and enhancing literacy.
The data was compiled in a new way this time around, as recipients were instructed to add up all of the hours spent on Recovery Act projects rather than counting each job individually. The new method was meant to make the process simpler and less subjective. Accuracy is still a concern, as it was in the initial round of reports. For instance, while 3,191 enitities filed reports for this period, only 1,255 reported creating at least one job. The remaining 1,936 entities collected more than $847 million for a range of projects, yet they reported either zero job creation or fractions of a job. While many of those projects have yet to get under way and many more involved little more than purchasing new equipment or supplies, a number of them have simply been misreported. For example, one road construction project underway in Bryan received more than $670,000 and lists a number of positions—including superintendents, truck drivers, and carpenters—that are being filled due to Recovery Act funds, but its job creation column still says zero. Instances such as this are bound to create underreporting and overreporting, but the data overall is a fairly accurate count of spending and job creation throughout the state.
Texas Impact continues to connect people with Recovery Act benefits while advocating for transparency and accountability as funds are spent.
Texas Impact Connecting People and Benefits
In an effort to promote a number of state and federal assistance programs, including those bolstered by Recovery Act funds, Texas Impact began reaching out to low income communities during the week of November 16th. The need for utility assistance, energy-saving weatherization, and public health care programs is as high as ever, since Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the nation and lost more jobs than any other state last month.
Click below to learn more about the events.
We began in Pasadena, where we were guests of the Cleveland-Ripley Community Center at their weekly food fair event. Along with our partners, Texans Together and the Sierra Club, we made presentations and handed out information to 375 people about how to enroll in CHIP or Medicaid, get assistance with utility and telephone bills, and apply for home weatherization from the City of Pasadena, which received almost $2 million in Recovery Act funds for that purpose.
On Saturday, November 21st, Texas Impact was in Houston’s Alief neighborhood for the annual Health and Community Resource Fair put on by Texans Together and the Houston Royal Oaks Lions Club. The City of Houston’s Residential Energy Efficiency Partnership joined us to talk about their Recovery Act-funded weatherization program as we continued to connect low income families to the assistance that is available to them.
First Recovery Act Reports
The first round of Recovery Act reports have been released, and they show Texas ranked 10th among states in the number of jobs created or saved so far, with about 19,600 jobs reported. The reports cover only grants, contracts, and loans awarded so far, so they do not include economic activity created by the tax breaks, entitlements, and unemployment insurance contained in the Recovery Act.
The data don't offer a lot of surprises about Texas in many respects. About 42 percent of the jobs created or saved so far are in education and transportation, which isn't surprising since TXDOT was very quick to get their projects off the ground this spring and the education funds were allocated in the state budget process for the current school year.
Potentially the most interesting set of jobs created so far are the 5,752 jobs reported by entities receiving US Department of Labor ARRA funds. These entities include local workforce boards around the state as well as other local employment projects and agencies, and may offer the most information about green jobs creation to date. For example, in Austin some of the funds have gone to American Youthworks and allowed them to to double the number of youth being served through their national model YouthBuild program.
A lot of work remains as Texas implements the Recovery Act, especially with regard to state and private-sector energy projects. For example, less than one percent of the State's $324 million allocation for the Weatherization Assistance Program has been transferred to contractors so they can begin work, meaning there are many more jobs yet to be created. With so much work left to be done, the state also has a chance to create its own plan for gathering information from Recovery Act recipients, a step that could fill some of the gaps in the federal guidelines and allow Texas to measure performance according to the its own priorities and needs. No such measures were enacted during the session, but state agencies, legislators, and the House Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization can play a role in shaping how Texas moves forward.
Stimulus Keeps Moving, As Concerns About Accountability Remain
As the $787 billion contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act continues to make an impact nationwide, federal and state officials are working through the challenges of reporting and tracking the funds. The process will be integral to determining the Recovery Act's effects on the economy and the benefits it provides in the areas of housing, energy, health care, poverty alleviation, and more.
The first step is to gather relevant data from all state and federal agencies that are handling funds, a process that is getting under way now as the first of the scheduled quarterly reports are being submitted. The reports will provide basic information about expenditures, subcontractors, and job creation, and the information they contain will be compiled and released to the public between October 12th and October 31st via Recovery.gov, the main portal for Recovery Act info on the national stage. That site already has a great deal of information breaking down the anticipated expenditures, including an interactive mapping feature that allows users to input their zip code and see the projects that are in progress in their neighborhood.
Continue reading below to learn more about the reporting and tracking process here in Texas.
State agencies, school districts, and other entities in Texas are collecting the necessary data as we speak. The state has already seen Recovery Act success stories as well as a few shortfalls, and the reporting process will be key to ensuring the transparency and accountability that will give Texans the full story of how the funds are being spent. While the Texas Legislature chose not to establish statewide regulations and performance measures, and the Comptroller's handling of the process has already been criticized, it is still possible that the reporting process can be fruitful for the state. It remains to be seen whether that will in fact be the case, but the Comptroller's reworked website that was just unveiled last week is a promising start. It now contains the amounts of funds received and allocated by each state agency as reported to the Comptroller by those agencies on a weekly basis.
The national Government Accountability Office is conducting bimonthly reviews of how Texas and fourteen other states are handling Recovery Act funds. Their latest report identified the Texas Education Agency as a "high risk" agency that will be given extra scrutiny, though it is not clear what factors contributed to that definition. The agency will receive "intensive technical assistance" as a result of that designation.
As Recovery Act spending and reporting continues, Texas Impact will continue its coverage of these important topics.
Federal Stimulus Dollars Helping Texas Prepare for Disasters
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will bring more than $290 million to the State Energy Conservation Office to help Texas increase energy efficiency and introduce renewable energy technologies around the state. There is a portion of that amount, however, that will be allocated for a project that has nothing to do with solar installations, energy audits, and the like. Instead, the funds are a part of a program aimed at improving the nation's energy emergency preparedness by helping states strengthen their energy infrastructures against hurricanes, floods, and other disasters.
In Texas, where the initiative is called the Energy Assurance Program, SECO will partner with the Public Utility Commission, Railroad Commission of Texas, and a number of other state entities and utility providers to update and improve the State of Texas Emergency Management Plan (EMP). The total amount Texas will get from the Recovery Act for the purpose of enhancing the EMP and ensuring "quick recovery and restoration from any energy supply disruptions" is $2.5 million. SECO and its partners will use the funds to run simulated exercises, provide new training to staff, and more.
National Report Shows Texas Needs to Improve Its Reporting on Economic Stimulus Spending
For more information contact Bee Moorhead, Executive Director, Texas Impact, (512) 472 – 3903 or bee@texasimpact.org OR Michelle Lee, Good Jobs First, (202) 232-1616 ext. 210 or mlee@goodjobsfirst.org
A new study of official state websites focusing on the federal stimulus program finds that Texas is among the states that need to improve the quality of their online reporting. “Texas usually excels in online open government, so it’s surprising and disappointing that we are failing on a project of this size and importance,” said Bee Moorhead, director of the interfaith advocacy network Texas Impact.
The Texas finding comes from Show Us the Stimulus, a report released today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center based in Washington, DC. The full text of the report as well as online state-specific appendices can be found on the Good Jobs First website.
“Many states are failing to support President Obama’s vow that the Recovery Act would be carried out with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability, said Good Jobs First executive director Greg LeRoy, “and they are making it more difficult to measure the success of ARRA in mitigating the effects of the recession.”
The Good Jobs First study examines the quality and quantity of disclosure by state websites on the many ways ARRA funding is flowing through state governments to communities, organizations and individuals. Looking at both spending programs and individual projects, it evaluates the general ARRA websites that all states have created as well as the reporting specifically on highway projects. Based on ten different criteria, each state (and the District of Columbia) is graded on a scale of 0 to 100.
“We tried to be as generous as possible, but most state ARRA sites simply do not measure up,” said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of the report. “The challenge is not insurmountable,” he added. “States such as Maryland, Colorado and Washington are doing a very good job in conveying vital information about stimulus spending and are leading the way in establishing best practices for state ARRA disclosure.”
Six states score 50 or better for their main ARRA site: Maryland (80), Colorado (68), Washington (63), West Virginia (60), New York (53) and Pennsylvania (50). Thirteen states score 50 or better for their highway reporting, led by Maryland (75), Washington (73) and Nebraska (60). The average score for the ARRA websites is 28, and for highway reporting 38.
Texas receives a score of 15 for its ARRA website, putting it in a tie for 34th place among the states. It does better in ARRA highway reporting, getting a score of 40 (a tie for 22nd place). “These federal funds represent a great opportunity for Texas, especially in the energy and transportation sectors, and a lack of transparency will make it impossible for Texans to be certain that we are getting the maximum benefit,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, the Texas director of the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Most states that score poorly for their main ARRA website do better in highway reporting, but there are five states that score very low for both: Alabama, District of Columbia, Illinois, Kentucky and Vermont. Low-scoring states are ones that provide few specifics on how ARRA money is being used in the state. Illinois, which gets a zero in both categories, has figures only at a national level and nothing on how much is being spent in the state.
Here are highlights of the state scoring for specific criteria:
• Most states do a good job of providing information on the categories of ARRA spending. Forty-two states display the data for broad categories (energy, housing, transportation, etc.), and 37 of these also provide details on specific programs.
• Geographic breakdowns are less common than data on program areas. Eighteen states provide the information, and in only three cases (Maine, New Mexico and Virginia) does the website show the information both for each county individually and for all counties side-by-side for comparison purposes.
• Few states juxtapose the geographic distribution of stimulus spending with patterns of economic distress, such as county unemployment rates or foreclosure levels.
• Apart from county dollar totals, state residents may be interested to know where individual ARRA projects such as the repaving of a road or repair of a school building are taking place. Eleven states provide project maps on their main ARRA website, while 30 provide maps as part of their ARRA highway project reporting.
• Only 10 states provide contractor names and dollar amounts on their ARRA website. The results are better in highway reporting, where 29 states have both contractor names and dollar figures.
• The paramount objective of the Recovery Act is to address mounting unemployment through job creation and retention. Yet only three states—Colorado, Maryland and Washington—currently provide any employment data for individual projects on their main ARRA site. Eighteen states do so in their highway reporting.
Based on our findings, Good Jobs First offers the following recommendations:
• Put a summary of key information about ARRA spending at the top of the home page of the site. A clear bar graph, pie chart or table showing the main spending flows goes a long way in helping the user begin to see what the Recovery Act is all about. There should be clear links to pages with more details about the various programs.
• Provide a map or a table showing how overall ARRA spending and the amounts in key categories are being distributed around the state.
• Along with information on spending streams, provide information on individual projects being funded by those programs. Where possible, display the location of the projects on maps. Interactive displays that allow one to drill down for more details are better than static PDF maps.
• For projects carried out by private contractors, be open about the contract award process and the identity of the companies that win bidding competitions. Post the bids and the details, including the full text, of the contract awarded to the winner.
• While the federal government’s Council of Economic Advisers is responsible for estimating the overall employment impacts of ARRA and the Recovery.gov website will report jobs data on some (but not all) individual projects, state ARRA sites should also make an effort to include employment data in their project reporting.
• ARRA sites should provide readily accessible information about the ways that individuals, organizations and businesses can apply for stimulus grants and contracts.
“The use of ARRA websites to inform the public is more than a matter of providing a service to state residents,” Mattera said. “The way in which the information is presented helps shape public attitudes toward the stimulus and could play a significant role in debates over future government interventions in the economy.”
The production of this report is part of the ongoing work of Good Jobs First on transparency and accountability issues relating to the Recovery Act. Good Jobs First co-chairs the Coalition for An Accountable Recovery (www.coalitionforanaccountablerecovery.org), which works on these issues at the federal level, and we coordinate States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery, or STAR Coalition (www.accountablerecovery.org), which works with state-level organizations.
Unemployment: Gov. Perry Ask the Feds for a Loan After Refusing the Free Money
[Update: The Austin-American Statesman gives its take on the situation and forecasts tax hikes for businesses as a result of Governor Perry's decision.]
The unemployment rate in Texas continued to rise in July, hitting 7.5 percent statewide, according to the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). The losses came as the national unemployment rate reached a 26-year high, and they were concentrated primarily in four economic sectors in Texas: Construction, Trade/Transportation/Utilities, Manufacturing, and Professional/Business Services.
The release of the new data coincided with news that Governor Rick Perry requested an initial loan of $170 million—with the option to borrow an additional $500 million later in the year—from the federal government to help pay unemployment benefits despite having rejected $555 million in Recovery Act funds meant to help states cover shortfalls in their unemployment funds. Those funds that were made available to Texas under the Recovery Act were in the form of grants that the state would not have had to pay back, while the current line of credit that Governor Perry has requested will leave the state with an obligation to repay the federal government.
Continue reading below for a full analysis of the unemployment numbers and how the state is planning to provide benefits to jobless Texans.
The rise in unemployment was most pronounced in South Texas, as jobless rates surpassed 10 percent in the Brownsville-Harlingen and Beaumont-Port Arthur areas and over 11 percent in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area. Other areas in the state being hit hard by the recession include Houston, which has lost 69,600 jobs in the last year and seen its unemployment rate hit 8 percent.
| Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) | Unemployment Rate | # of People Unemployed | Poverty Rate |
| McAllen-Edinburg-Mission | 11.1% | 33,100 | 37.5% |
| Brownsville-Harlingen | 10.4% | 15,700 | 37.1% |
| Beaumont-Port Arthur | 10.2% | 18,700 | 16.5% |
| El Paso | 9.6% | 29,300 | 28.2% |
| United States | 9.5% | 15,095,000 | 13.3% |
As those numbers continue to rise, the state's unemployment trust fund is being pushed beyond its limits. The fund, which was already forecasted to be depleted later this year, has approached insolvency faster than state officials estimated, prompting the request from Governor Perry for federal loans. And as Representative Mark Strama pointed out last week, the decision to turn down federal stimulus grants will cost taxpayers large sums, since these new loans will have to be repaid. Another larger concern for the state should be the fact that the unemployment trust fund has been exhausted despite Texas providing benefits to only 28 percent of its unemployed. That number is the lowest among all states, with only the District of Columbia having a lower rate. In fact, one of the stipulations tied to the Recovery Act unemployment funds was aimed at increasing that percentage, something Governor Perry was unwilling to do. The low rate means that while 285,000 unemployed Texans were receiving benefits as of last month, hundreds of thousands more were going without.
The state has borrowed federal funds for this purpose before—in 2003, the state was authorized to borrow $500 million. After borrowing $280 million of that total, the state was forced to issue $1.4 billion in bonds to repay the debt and refill the unemployment trust fund.
Delving deeper into the unemployment numbers reveals troubling trends in important industries. One quarter of job losses over the last year have come in the Trade/Transportation/Utilities sector, and that sector combines with the Construction, Manufacturing, and Professional/Business Services sectors to make up almost 90 percent of all job losses in the state since June 2008. That means the state has lost a large number of well-paying jobs over the last year, as the average hourly wage in those sectors ranged from $17.28 to $22.52. [To search for statewide wage and employment data in any sector, click here and scroll down to the "Wages by Profession" link.] The TWC release neglected to mention any anticipated impact of Recovery Act funds on those key sectors, and without stringent reporting requirements it could prove difficult to gather any specific data regarding their impact on the quantity and quality of jobs.
Unemployed Texans got one piece of good news, at least, when TWC reported they would in fact be able to release additional employment benefits on time. The 13-week extension of benefits for jobless Americans was included in the Recovery Act, but TWC had said it was having trouble figuring out how to process the funds, leaving many to fear a delay that could have been disastrous for many households that are depending on those funds. In all, the federally funded extension could provide up to $380 million in benefits to Texans.
Update: Recovery Act Funds Continue to Flow
Interested in knowing where Texas stands in its implementation of its share of Recovery Act funds? How the state stacks up to others around the nation? The timeline for all Recovery Act expenditures? If so, check out Texas Impact's latest report on those and other issues involving the Recovery Act.
Though the Legislature opted to not take proactive steps to institute planning and accountability measures, Texas Impact continues to track Recovery Act funds, state agency actions, and national developments. Stay tuned all year for Recovery Act updates, links, and success stories.
Post-session Wrap-up: The Legislature and the Recovery Act
Legislators began the 81st Legislative Session with the knowledge that an unprecedented influx of federal money was coming, and Texas Impact was there from the beginning, urging the Legislature to take proactive steps that would increase the likelihood that this windfall would provide the maximum benefit to the state. 
At issue was how best to ensure that funds from the Recovery Act would be spent not just in a transparent manner, but in a way that was transformative as well. Now that the session has ended, we can summarize and assess the Legislature's response to the $15 billion in federal stimulus funds, not to mention the hundreds of billions in additional federal dollars that will be available in the form of nationwide competitive grants. In short, the Legislature failed to take proactive steps, opting to end the session without enacting any special measures to accommodate such an extraordinary amount of federal dollars and without passing a single piece of significant legislation related to implementing or tracking Recovery Act funds.
Continue reading for more about the Legislature's actions in full.
In the House, Speaker Straus facilitated the creation of a Select Committee to act as the House’s eyes and ears with regard to the federal stimulus funds. That committee, led by Representative Jim Dunnam, proved to be a valuable resource for keeping the entire body informed about Recovery Act details. Beyond that, however, little to no action was taken to adjust to the state’s new financial situation in the midst of the economic downturn. The Senate did even less, with any discussion of how to handle Recovery Act funds going on behind closed doors. Only one piece of significant legislation dealing specifically with implementing and tracking Recovery Act funds was filed during the session. That bill—HB 4263—passed out of committee before being rolled into HB 2942, which made structural changes to state government, and it went on to pass the House unanimously before dying in the Senate.
When it came time to make the state’s budget for the biennium, the Legislature’s plan for those funds became clearer. Coming into the session, legislators had planned on tapping the state’s Rainy Day Fund in order to cover a $4 billion budgetary gap, but they quickly saw the Recovery Act funds as a way to leave the RDF untouched in order to use it in 2011, when the structural deficits created in 2006 will be even worse than they are now. Wherever there was an opportunity to supplant state funds rather than supplement them with federal stimulus money, legislators chose to do so. So instead of local school districts receiving extra funds to avoid teacher layoffs and improve education, they will not see the increases that federal officials intended. This strategy of supplantation will save the state some money in the short term, but it will result in stagnant funding for education, Medicaid, and other vital services.
Certainly people across the state will see some tangible benefits from the Recovery Act. The Department of Housing and Community Affairs will scale up its Weatherization Assistance Program, for example, as it was granted more than $300 million to help homeowners increase efficiency. Texans will see tax breaks, extended unemployment benefits, and increased amounts in their food stamp accounts, just to name a few changes.
Those benefits will come with a host of missed opportunities, though. Texas Impact long supported the implementation of temporary measures that would have dealt specifically with the Recovery Act funds. The state could have benefited greatly from having some way to define goals, strategies, and performance measures that would have gone a long way towards ensuring that Texas’ share of these funds is used wisely. Just as important as the $15+ billion the state has already received will be the hundreds of billions of dollars in competitive grants for which state and local governments around the nation will be vying. While most of those other states have taken proactive steps in this regard, entities in Texas—especially those in rural and poor areas—will be at a distinct disadvantage thanks to a dearth of coordination, planning, and resources.
Texas Impact will continue to monitor the state’s handling of Recovery Act funds and work with legislators and state agencies as they look for best practices.
Lege TV: Mark Strama on HB 1569
Watch Strama's closing remarks
Rep. Mark Strama delivered brief closing remarks to the Texas House of Representatives after the failure to pass of HB 1569.His remarks came at the end of a marathon five days in the House that culminated in a stalemate between the Democratic and Republican parties over the Voter ID bill.
