State Announces Specific Stimulus Allocation

Secretary James Creedon, Chief Implementation Officer for the Pennsylvania Commission on American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, addressed community leaders, nonprofit organizations, and foundation directors at a forum in the Heinz History Center today. He explained how $9.4 billion in stimulus package funding is being distributed and divided in Pennsylvania.

Creedon says the largest portion of stimulus money will go toward Medicaid. $4 billion dollars will go to this state program to free up money for other areas of governance. “It was a good, easy way to put money into an existing program, one that didn’t need to be created anew, one that the regulations were in place, the processes were in place, and the state could manage it very quickly and get that money and help them with the budget deficit we face in all 50 states,” says Creedon.

Education will receive $2.56 billion in stimulus cash, says Creedon. “Whether it’s Title 1, whether it’s Special Ed, or whether it’s idea funding, [the allocation] is also designed to help states stabilize their budgets a little bit,” says Creedon. “The governor’s proposal was to use that stabilization money to allow schools to do things differently, to invest in modernization, to invest in new curriculum, to invest in computer upgrades.” Creedon says Senate Republicans are opposed to this idea, preferring instead to cut state funding to education and use the stimulus dollars to fill in the gap.

Over $1 billion will go to state transportation projects, mainly highways and bridges. Creedon says mass transit and airports will be funded directly from the federal agencies, and rail investments will be done through a competitive grant program. Creedon says roadways and bridges are where the Rendell administration came more into play. “The governor said, ‘We’re not going to take that billion dollars and reduce what we would normally invest in highways by a billion dollars. We’re going to keep our investment at 1.8 [billion dollars] and we’re going to invest another billion dollars in highways and bridges,’” says Creedon. He says by Labor Day, every one of the transportation projects in the stimulus program will be under way.

Creedon says $258 million will be granted to the state over the next two years to work with 42 organizations to perform weatherization projects. “This isn’t redoing a bridge. This is putting new storm windows in a home,” says Creedon. In addition, $100 million will be used to invest in alternative energy sources, including solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass energies. He says investment will probably begin in the summer, focusing mostly on wind energy.

Creedon adds that $23 million will be set aside for communities with under 35,000 people, for companies looking to make smaller investments. He says companies can be creative with their applications, but most are expected to address community “housekeeping” needs.