INVESTIGATION: Worcester’s Federal Stimulus Costs 250k per Job
Friday, February 24, 2012
The primary goals of the stimulus plan, set forth by President Obama, were to “create new jobs and save existing ones, spur economic activity and invest in long-term growth, and foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending.”
“Typically, these funds only created 1 or 2 jobs, because the rest went directly to funding the program,” said Jacqueline Vachon-Jackson, Director of the Worcester’s Division of Neighborhood and Housing Development. Vachon-Jackson referenced a $1.8 million project used to aid homelessness in the area. She told GoLocalWorcester that of that money, about $110 thousand was put directly toward creating 1 administrative job.
Big money projects
In one case, the City of Worcester was awarded $1,245,014 in stimulus money to fund the Community and Neighborhood Development Project, which builds youth and family summer programs and provides case management services at veterans shelters. The program created 11 jobs.
Separately from the city, the Commonwealth has been awarded almost $7.7 billion overall from the stimulus. Nearly $4.5 million of that money has gone to Central Massachusetts’ Watershed Conservation Project, which began receiving federal funding in October of 2009. The stated goal of that project includes controlling the destructive population of Asian Longhorned Beetles in the Worcester area. It has cited its success as having planted 7,870 trees in 2011. The project created 33 jobs, not all of which are full-time.
Worcester Public Schools retained 482 jobs. Photo: Flickr, dcJohn
Focus on Job Retention
The City of Leominster has invested block grant funding from the Department of Energy into converting the local City Hall and Veterans Center from oil to gas-dependent energy, hoping to lower energy costs. But in terms of job creation, Leominster Grant Assessor Wendy Wiiks said, “For us it’s more of a job retention program. We didn’t get enough money to actually create new jobs.”
The City of Leominster was also awarded a $102,647.00 grant for “equipment, supplies, overtime, and a Youth Services program.” According to federal government data, the program has never created a job, and still has almost 20 thousand dollars that haven’t been touched since June of 2009.
When asked about stimulus dollars’ impact on jobs, Congressman Jim McGovern told GoLocalWorcester, “In Worcester alone, hundreds of teachers and firefighters and police officers kept their jobs because of the stimulus.”
The Congressman referenced funding from the stimulus that directly sustained the jobs of 24 police officers in the City of Worcester.
“I do think that more should have been done in the areas of transportation and infrastructure. I argued for a larger package at the time, but the political will didn’t exist in Congress,” he said.
Victor Matheson, Associate Professor of Economics at the College of the Holy Cross, said that just because the jobs are not created in Worcester, it does not mean the jobs are not springing up elsewhere.
“Since money is federal in nature, the U.S. government doesn’t really care whether jobs are created planting the trees in Worcester or growing the trees in Vermont. The stimulus creates American jobs either way,” said Matheson.
Schools saved jobs
Brian Allen, Chief Financial and Operations Officer for Worcester Public Schools said one area of success from stimulus dollars was the school system's ability to retain 482 teaching jobs, mostly through the state back-filling dollars to make up for budget short falls.
“A big piece for us were some savings we were able to achieve through health insurance changes, restructuring, as well as energy changes in schools to natural gas,” said Brian Allen, Chief Financial and Operations Officer for Worcester Public Schools.
Allen said that even as stimulus dollars wane, he looks forward to the potential of job creation, “Our hope would be that we’re able to create more jobs as the state and federal economies, hopefully, improve.” Incentive for increased funding is heavily based on enrollment, which has grown. “Retaining them is the bare minimum,” he said.
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