By Doug Linkhart, City Councilman-At-Large
Waiting for money from the federal stimulus package is like waiting for catsup to flow — it seems to take forever, then it all comes at once. Plus, we’re not sure exactly how much to expect.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the federal stimulus, contained few specifics or earmarks designating exactly how money should be spent. Most of the money is going to the state or regional agencies to be allocated from there.
The estimated amount of funding coming to our state is around $2 billion, a fourth of which will go to state highways and transit. This money will be allocated by the Colorado Department of Transportation, which has already issued a list that includes one or two roads in Denver, and the Denver Regional Council of Governments, which has yet to list what will be funded.
Another large chunk of the stimulus funding will go to Human Services and Medicaid, which should help replenish some of the cuts that we have had to make in Denver. We will also get additional money for Community Development Block Grants and mortgage assistance for first-time home-buyers and people facing foreclosure.
Beyond these dollars, most of the remaining stimulus dollars are for programs for which there will be competitive application processes. This includes Community-Oriented Policing Services ($1 billion nationally), Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants ($3.2 billion nationally) and clean water programs.
While the stimulus package will help our city and state budgets, we are still facing some difficult times. The City is cutting $56 million in 2009 due to the recession, on top of the $30 million we cut during the budget process last summer. This year we are trying hard to avoid layoffs of city workers, but they will suffer in other ways, such as losing bonus pay increases and potentially facing furlough days.
Denver residents are spending less, taking fewer risks and saving more, which is probably a good policy to live by. If Americans had followed that advice for the past decade, we would probably not be in this recession.
Helping people exercise better financial judgment is one of the recommendations of a city task force that spent the past year looking at how to improve the economic position of Denver residents. The Economic Prosperity Task Force, which I co-chaired with our Economic Development Director, Andre Pettigrew, focused on helping all Denver residents be more prosperous.
The Task Force is making five recommendations: improve the financial literacy of young people, connect adults with banking institutions and help them learn more about managing money, reshape our public assistance programs to help people become self-sufficient, eliminate the “cliff effect” of people losing all public assistance when they get jobs and improve public awareness of resources for job training, entrepreneurs and small businesses.
If we’re successful in implementing the above prosperity efforts, Denver residents will be much more resilient in times of economic turmoil. That way, we can uphold our western heritage of independence instead of depending on Uncle Sam to bail us out in times of trouble.
