STAR Coalition Reactions to the October 30 Data
CALIFORNIA
by Murtaza Baxamusa, Center on Policy Initiatives, San Diego
While Recovery Act reporting represents a landmark in government transparency, more must be done to make sure high quality jobs are created to help build a sustainable, equitable, green economy. With ARRA funding still flowing to communities throughout California, public agencies and elected officials need to ensure that the jobs created present promising opportunities for career pathways and are available to low-income and disadvantaged communities.
The Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) has been looking closely at state and local obligation of ARRA funding. However, we are unable to understand which areas and residents of California benefited from immediate job creation because of current reporting limitations on the use of ARRA funds:
- The largest jobs creation/retention (53,390) in California is from education grant for state fiscal stabilization. However, all these jobs are attributed to Sacramento. We could not identify how many of these jobs were created or saved in different counties or school districts.
- The largest number of jobs by a contractor is Northrop Grumman that reports retaining 362 jobs for a $44 million contract. Since the job description includes a wide range, from clerks to engineers and managers, it is difficult to identify the distribution of occupations, and whether these jobs can be classified as manufacturing jobs.
- Another top contractor in job creation in California is Synergy Electric Company, though it appears the data for the company is duplicated. This is a local woman-owned business in San Diego that partners with certified joint apprenticeship programs for careers in electrical construction. It is a good company that needs to be highlighted, yet it is impossible to distinguish it from other construction companies that may not have such an exemplary record. This is because there is no data on wages and health insurance, number of apprentices, and journeymen on the project that have graduated from apprenticeship programs.
- Other large contractors appear to be highlighting highly-skilled jobs possibly ignoring the low-wage or low-skilled jobs in their descriptions. In some instances, contractors that have workers on the project are showing no jobs reported.
Since job creation is one of the primary goals in several streams of ARRA funds, the reporting of jobs by different agencies should be accurate. The problem is whether different public agencies are equipped to detect inaccurate (and possibly fraudulent) jobs reporting by recipients and sub-recipients. For example, an audit by the California State Auditor (June 2009 Report 2009-611.1) on education found that the majority of California state agencies and sub-recipients have no experience in collecting and estimating job creation and retention, either by number of jobs or types of jobs (p. 26).
It is also questionable whether the ARRA reports on Recovery.gov reconcile with current state employment and workforce reports. For example, the California Employment Development Department collects employment and payroll data from all employers. Some state departments, such as California Department of Transportation collect information on workforce occupations and wages from contractors. However, these numbers are not currently checked with the ARRA reports to determine if there is a discrepancy. In addition to detecting inaccuracies, the supplemental data in these reports can paint a comprehensive picture of the number and types of jobs, geographic distribution, and race/gender inequities.
CPI is part of the California Green Stimulus Coalition - an alliance of the state's top environmental, energy, labor, economic development and social justice groups. The coalition is urging better quality reporting in California and at the federal level in the remaining seven quarterly rounds of Recovery Act filings.
FLORIDA
by Miami Workers Center, Research Institute for Social and Economic Policy and Kirwan Institute
While there is great commitment to transparency by the Obama administration, the tracking guidelines established by the Office of Management and Budget have significant shortcomings that will make it difficult for the public to understand the impact of Recovery Act spending. Critical information such as the quality of jobs created, who benefited from the jobs, and how well the work was performed, is absent from Recovery Act data collection. Also, only the first two tiers of grant recipients are required to report on what projects were funded, how much money was spent, and the number of jobs created. This is problematic because it does not reveal how the money 'hit the ground' and leaves many questions about which businesses or agencies actually did the work and who actually got the jobs.
We urge the federal government and Florida's state and local governments to track indicators relative to opportunity for all jobs and contracts. All recipients of Recovery Act funding should be required to report, in addition to number of jobs, the demographics of those who received or kept jobs due to Recovery spending including race and ethnicity, gender and zip code, the number of hours of jobs created, and wages and benefits paid. Each recipient should be required to report this data directly to the federal government through a centralized data collection system, which should be accessible to the public on-line and searchable by geographic area, recipient name and contract amount. An approach such as this would be helpful for tracking investment in communities of color and other marginalized areas and ensure that funds are spent where they will have the most impact.
KENTUCKY
by K.A. Owens, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
Kentuckian for the Commonwealth has been tracking transportation, energy and weatherization stimulus funds. We applaud Kentucky for securing federal energy grants above and beyond our initial state stimulus apportionment for an energy efficiency appliance rebate program, clean diesel programs, and electricity grid enhancements. We hope that the more than $130 million the state will dole out in weatherization and energy-related stimulus dollars in the next few months will result in a demonstrable policy and market shift in our state towards enhanced support of the clean energy sector.
Members from across the state have been particularly interested in the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant dollars, as they offer communities an opportunity to create long-lasting, local green jobs. According to the data, millions in EECBG funds awarded both to Kentucky and localities have yet to be awarded or spent. The state recently opened competition to local governments from its $10.7 million portion of the EECBG money. Of the 20 local governments that applied for the EECBG money that was allocated to them directly from the federal government, only 10 have been awarded the money. It is unclear where the process stands for the remaining 10 areas - and if such information about process were included in mandatory reporting it would be helpful for our community organizing approach.
In terms of jobs - while Kentucky reported that 3,577 jobs have been created with stimulus grant and loan funds to date, very few of the new positions are in the clean energy and transportation sectors. For example, from $50 million in weatherization funds received by Kentucky (out of $70 million expected) - only 4 jobs have reportedly been created. The reported data does not define what these jobs are, how much they pay or where they exist. Especially for Kentuckians - who suffer from 11% unemployment - improving the quality of the data overall and specifically the job creation data would increase our ability to hold the state accountable for progress in this area.
KFTC believes that it is possible for a trained researcher to derive useful information from the available sources; however we also believe that an ordinary person wanting to track the stimulus money in their own community would have difficulty finding useful information. If an ordinary Kentuckian wanted to find out, for example, whether stimulus money got where it was supposed to go and is doing what it is supposed to be doing, it would be difficult with the sources of data as it stands today.
NEW YORK
by Bettina Damiani, Good Jobs New York
The data released on October 30 provides an unprecedented amount of information for transparency experts and average New Yorkers alike. We are concerned, however, about some problems with the quality of the data. For example, of the 8,513 entries for New York ARRA grant projects, 5,413 of them have no funding or agency awarding information. This makes a true analysis difficult.
The information showing the Congressional District for the recipient is helpful, yet it would be more useful to get information on the Zip Codes of the people receiving jobs. This, along with other worker demographic information, would make it possible to determine whether those communities most in need are getting adequate help from ARRA spending.
There are also problems with the location listed for some grants. For example, the 18,603 jobs listed as created or saved with a grant to New York State for elementary and secondary education are all said to be located in the state capital Albany, yet the people whose jobs were created or saved by the grant presumably live throughout the state.
An initial glance at the data show some encouraging projects, such as a $67.2 million grant to New York City Correctional Services to provide transitional jobs and skills training to more than 1,600 individuals passing through the criminal justice system.
OHIO
by Amy Hanauer, Executive Director, Policy Matters Ohio
Ohio is in dire economic straits, with double-digit unemployment projected for at least the next two years. We lost jobs during the 2001 recession, continued to lose jobs throughout the national expansion, and have lost further employment during this recession. We also have severely neglected infrastructure needs. Ohio desperately needed assistance from the federal stimulus, particularly in the form of state fiscal relief and Unemployment Compensation extensions. State fiscal relief enabled Ohio to meet some of its budgetary obligations, although the state budget, in the end, contained unacceptable slashing of public services. The federal stimulus act is paying extended or extra unemployment compensation benefits to hundreds of thousands of Ohioans and adding $30 million to the state economy each week. This stabilizes families and communities and has prevented a deeper downward spiral in our economy. The 17,000 jobs that have been created and tracked in Ohio as a result of the stimulus package are a helpful first step toward beginning to add to employment in this troubled state.
Policy Matters Ohio has been looking closely at state and local obligation of ARRA funding to highway construction, a critical job creator. The Ohio Department of Transportation has provided a complete set of data, down to contractor and subcontractors, for projects that have gone to bid. It appears that project selection has targeted the most distressed local economies of the state.
However, we will not be able to understand if those local areas benefited from immediate job creation unless we have a way to see who are the contractors hired for each project. The federal government needs to mandate publication of jobs data - who got the jobs, by city of residence, gender and ethnicity. The goal is to see how the federal spending benefits local economies; to understand the impact, we need to see where people who got the jobs lived and who they were.
The ARRA reporting system provides unprecedented transparency with regard to awards, but it does not permit the local analysis needed to evaluate economic development outcomes.
TEXAS
by Bee Moorhead, Texas Impact
We are excited to see the tangible effects of the Recovery Act in Texas, such as the expansion of the American Youthworks green jobs training program, but the lack of performance and equity metrics make it difficult to determine whether Texas is making gains according to our state's unique priorities and needs.
