16 responses to “Love that ‘Pivot to Jobs’”

1. 

   Steve Enos

   05 March 2010

   George does your chart include the 500K+ the County received for the new transit center in Grass Valley? Can you please check on that as the County has received the money.

   LikeLike

2. 

   Russ

   05 March 2010

   Steve,
   Was the new transit center submitted as a stimulus project by the County/City, or as part of the Transportation Commission stimulus Package. if part of the NCTC Package, Dan Landon the executive director can answer your question. When I was on the Commission is was part of the transit systems budget as a separate line item.

   LikeLike

3. 

   Steve Enos

   05 March 2010

   George, I was at the joint meeting last night and the County transoportation folks said it was ARRA funds and that they have the money in hand.
   The design and engineering work for the project is being done by locals, last name Baker, from Nevada City.
   Last night included the effort to have locals do the construction too.
   Might need to check your information and data source as this project is 500K+ and is ARRA funded… per the County.

   LikeLike

4. 

   George Rebane

   05 March 2010

   Good questions. My Friday ARRA chart is taken from the data that the county publishes on its ‘MyNevadaCounty.com’ home page. If you click on the red printing above the numbers, it takes you to the accounting breakdown of how the three dollar amounts are derived. I was told by Rick Haffey’s office that this data is kept current. But all of that doesn’t mean that the county’s bureaucracy has no ‘right hand, left hand’ problem.

   LikeLike

5. 

   Steven Frisch

   05 March 2010

   Hope if they are going with local labor they are paying prevailing wage.

   LikeLike

6. 

   Kasey

   06 March 2010

   There are a couple different ARRA funding totals for Nevada County, it depends who you ask. California Recovery Task Force’s “unofficial” Nevada County total is here:
   http://www.cpec.ca.gov/RecoveryData/County.asp?County=Nevada&Sort=Name
   The California Stimulus Map is here:
   http://www.recovery.ca.gov/HTML/RecoveryImpact/map.shtml

   LikeLike

7. 

   George Rebane

   06 March 2010

   Thanks for those links Kasey. I’m not sure what to do with the so-called ‘budget’ amounts called out at the first link since they are so heavily qualified (received, approved, applied for???). But it does give a good overall scope of ARRA monies coming/considered for Nevada County jurisdictions. The folks at the Rood Center should know what the status of total ARRA monies are for the county. Do you know where equivalent numbers for GV, Nevada City, and Truckee might be available?

   LikeLike

8. 

   Kasey

   06 March 2010

   You’re welcome George. It is indeed a difficult Act to follow.
   GV, NC, and Truckee numbers from that same California Recovery Task Force source could be gathered by visiting that second link in my previous post. There are a couple ways to query this map. One way is to try using the search box to search for the city of interest.
   Another method you may want to try is by clicking on Nevada County’s “pie” (currently with 70 projects). That would take you to a list of all projects counted as “Nevada County” projects. On your right would then be a list of all the individual projects. To determine which geography the project applies to (if possible, some cover multiple geographies) you’d have to make some judgment calls by clicking on each project and use the recipient and project information.

   LikeLike

9. 

   George Rebane

   06 March 2010

   That may turn out to be a trail of tears. For the present I’ll continue to believe that county CFO Joe Cristoffel is posting the correct numbers on the county’s website. The purpose of the graph is to present a picture of the rate that ARRA monies are actually distributed to a jurisdiction with which we all are familiar. If you discover a more reliable source that presents the three totals for the four Nevada County jurisdictions, please share them. And thanks again Kasey.

   LikeLike

10. 

    Steve Enos

    08 March 2010

    I don;t know what is going on with the info sources George uses because they don;t seem to be very accurate. Here’s info about another local ARRA funded project:
    A half-million dollar street construction project could gain approval at Tuesday’s Grass Valley City Council meeting.
    The council is set to see a proposal to raise the intersection at Race and South Auburn streets with the stated goal of increasing the visibility of pedestrians and slowing vehicle speeds on South Auburn. The project would be financed by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds and cost about $530,000, according to a city staff report.
    If approved, a contract for the work is expected to be awarded in April with construction to take place later this Spring, the report said. The construction is expected to take about a month.

    LikeLike

11. 

    George Rebane

    08 March 2010

    One more time. I use the home page of the Nevada County website where the ‘applied for’, ‘approved’, and ‘received’ ARRA amounts are summarized. If the municipal jurisdictions provided equal summaries of their ARRA funds, I’d be glad to start plotting a grand total for those categories. It seems that only the county is willing to publish their data in such a format.

    LikeLike

12. 

    Steven Frisch

    08 March 2010

    What about private sector ARRA work? or work done on a regional basis like the State Energy Program? or training and youth development opportunities coming from the Governors Green Job Corps initiative? or regional Workforce Investment Board programs? or state highway programs not let by the county governments through their processes? or federal services provided by federal agencies and not done as a pass through?
    Seems like you are just reporting the county data, allowing it to imply that we are being underserved by the federal government, then not taking any responsibility for collecting data from other sources. If you know other ARRA funding is being distributed through other sources why not start out by saying “Hey, I know there is a lot more than thais, it sure would be great to get an accurate count here”.
    I know why—because it would not fit your agenda to convince people that the federal government is screwing us. You want people to think the government is screwing them.
    Ant-government propaganda again!

    LikeLike

13. 

    Mikey McD

    08 March 2010

    Over 1 year later and only 1/3 of the funds have been paid out (http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx). “Good enough for government work.”
    If this administration wanted to offer hope/change they could return the remaining (unused) $500 billion back to taxpayers!

    LikeLike

14. 

    George Rebane

    08 March 2010

    SteveF, you nailed me again, there’s just no getting around you. One does wonder, however, why Nevada County is doing the same thing.

    LikeLike

15. 

    Mikey McD

    08 March 2010

    http://www.timhawkins.net/video/government-can.html

    LikeLike

16. 

    Russ

    10 March 2010

    KQED has this report on ARRA funding. How much is Nevada County’s ARRA in the Weatherization Assistance Program? From KQED:
    Touted as a “shovel-ready” project that would create jobs immediately by leveraging existing infrastructure, the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program has so far fallen far short of its goals.  The program received almost $5 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to improve the energy efficiency of nearly 590,000 residences of low-income citizens — more than a tenfold increase over the $450 million approved in FY 2009.
    But a Special Report released last month from the Inspector General of the Office of Audit Services at the DOE found that as of December, just $368 million (8%) of the $4.73 billion allocation had been spent, and 5% of the nearly 600,000 units nationwide slated for weatherization with funding from the Recovery Act were actually completed.
    That includes completion of just 12 of 43,400 planned units in California, which has been allotted more than $185.8 million in Recovery Act funding for its Weatherization Assistance Program.
    
    Read the rest here.

    LikeLike