Economy Alarm: Administration’s Stimulus Claims Lack Credibility in Colorado

Administration’s Stimulus Claims Lack Credibility in Colorado

Democrats’ Stimulus Reporting is Mismanaged and Overinflated

Democrats Claim the Stimulus Has Created or Saved Over a Million Jobs

“Vice President Joe Biden on Friday: The stimulus “is responsible for over 1 million jobs so far.”

“White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett on Oct. 18: The stimulus “really staved off a disaster and we saved millions of jobs around the country.”

“White House release June 2: “Just over 100 days in, over 150,000 jobs have been created or saved.”

“White House senior advisor David Axelrod on June 7: “The stimulus itself has produced hundreds of thousands of jobs.” (“Inconsistent messages on Obama’s stimulus package,” The Los Angeles Times, 10/31/2009)

Credibility Crash: Administration’s Stimulus Reporting is “Inaccurate” and “Overreaching”

Click on the computerized map of the state of Colorado on the federal government’s stimulus-spending Web page, and it displays 8,094 full-time jobs created or saved in the state.

It’s a number that is inflated by at least 1,000 jobs, the result of confusing reporting requirements, inaccurate reporting and, perhaps, overreaching at some reporting agencies.

A Denver Post analysis of federal data found:

• Englewood-based TeleTech Government Solutions listed the equivalent of 635 full-time jobs credited to Colorado created by recovery funds used to set up call centers on the conversion to digital television. Only the equivalent of 34 of them were filled in Colorado. The rest are scattered across the country.

• The city of Westminster reported that its $150,438 contract for road work on Lowell Boulevard would create 117 jobs. That would equate to $1,286 per job. The city said the estimate is based on anyone who will work on the project, even if it was for only one day. No federal officials told the city to convert to the number of full-time-equivalent slots, an official said.

• Two child-development centers — one in Colorado Springs and the other in Saguache County — reported they had created or saved more than 292 jobs combined. However, the money — totaling about $650,000, or $2,226 a job — was used to give employees cost- of-living raises. Only three new jobs were created.

• Some subsidized-housing projects listed their entire staffs as jobs retained as a result of stimulus spending even if the money was the same rental assistance for their tenants they had received in previous years. Combined, they could total as many as 200 jobs.

Trying to address issues

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When the first round of reports was made public in mid-October, TeleTech reported that the recovery money resulted in 4,231 new jobs in Colorado. That made the state the national leader in stimulus jobs.

However, when the report was refined, the number released last week was reduced to the equivalent of 635 full-time jobs because so many were temporary jobs that lasted less than two months.

But further examination finds that even that considerably inflates the number that should be credited to Colorado. Only 34 of those jobs are here. The rest were hired for call centers all across the country.

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“Two or three days”

David Mockmore, executive director of the Walsenburg Housing Authority, said he took a comparable approach when he reported that $262,598 in stimulus money for a new maintenance facility and tenant upgrades led to 21 new jobs. All but four were workers hired for short periods by the subcontractors, Mockmore said.

“In some cases, their portion was done in two or three days,” he said.

Similar confusion led the Community Partnership for Child Development in Colorado Springs to submit a job figure of 269 and the Head Start program in Center in Saguache County to report 23 full-time jobs saved and created.

In both cases, the stimulus money was used for cost-of-living increases for staff, some training and an extra day’s pay for the Center workers, officials for both programs said.

“They weren’t created,” said Mary McClure, director of the Center Head Start program. “They were supplemented with a cost-of-living increase. That was kind of confusing to us.”

Instead of 292 jobs combined, the federal funds led to three new jobs, all in Colorado Springs.

In other cases, subsidized-housing programs for low- and moderate-income renters were told to report their regular Section 8 rental assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as stimulus funds, managers of three projects told The Post.

All three listed their entire staffs, totaling 102 employees, because they said they could not continue the program without the rent subsidies.

“We already had Section 8 funding. This is just a continuation,” said Rebecca Firestone, regional manager for Franciscan Ministries, which operates the Francis Heights and Clare Gardens housing projects in Denver. “We weren’t going to lose our Section 8 funding before this.” (Burt Hubbard, “Stimulus-jobs count in Colorado overinflated,” Denver Post, 11/10/2009)

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