ARRA helps Conn. sustain jobs, kick-start development

The state is receiving $30 million in stimulus funding to upgrade signaling
on the commuter rail line connecting Danbury and Norwalk.

 

n the torrent of activity unleashed by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Edward Heep wanted to know just one thing ”“ was any “clean water” funding available for his One Two Flush retrofit system for reducing wastewater from toilets?

There might be, was the answer from the Department of Environmental Protection, and what”™s more it might be a funding priority.

While some naysayers pan the federal government”™s ARRA as money swirling down the drain, there is little doubt it has been the major economic development story in Connecticut in 2009, helping to sustain and even kick-start construction and development activities that otherwise might have languished in the collapsed economy and credit markets.

Connecticut is scheduled to release next month its first detailed, statewide report on recovery spending. Entering September, the Democrat-dominated Connecticut General Assembly wrote $1.5 billion in federal stimulus funding into its newest proposal for a two-year budget, in a bid to find a compromise with Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell.
The stimulus”™s biggest impact was outside Hartford, however, in places like Westport where Loureiro Contractors Inc. was made the prime contractor in mid-August on a $4.3 million project to repair the Hales Road Bridge.
Since February, more than $1.2 billion in stimulus funding had been committed or spent in Connecticut, including $150 million for specific projects or programs in Fairfield County, and likely vastly more for statewide programs including Fairfield County.

 

As of August, the state had committed $200 million for various bridge and highway projects, including $71 million for work along the Merritt Parkway led by O&G Industries Inc.; $150 million for mass-transit projects, including $30 million for remote rail switching along the Danbury corridor; and $105 million to replace an Amtrak bridge in Niantic.
Half of all highway spending received by states was required to be “obligated” within four months of receipt, or earmarked for specific projects, while states had six months to dedicate mass-transit funding for specific projects. Municipal projects have up to a year to assign funding, and state officials say most construction on those projects will not begin until next year, giving ARRA”™s impact some legs even as unemployment stabilizes in Connecticut and elsewhere.

 

The state estimates that the spending to date has saved or created 4,000 jobs, and hundreds of more transportation sector jobs are expected to be created over the next several weeks as contracts are finalized for new projects. In all, the Obama administration has projected a 41,000-job impact in Connecticut as a result of stimulus spending.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Connecticut”™s job count remains 67,000 positions below their levels of a year ago.

As of August, Connecticut organizations had applied for more than $3 billion in stimulus funding, including for 350 grants that will be awarded on a competitive basis. Those proposals include $300 million toward a high-speed rail corridor connecting Hartford and Springfield, Mass.; $45 million to help communities deal with foreclosed homes in their neighborhoods; $5 million for broadband initiatives; and $4 million for a regional consortium to spur the creation of “green” environmental jobs.

At the same time, companies and agencies have struggled to comply with the enhanced reporting requirements attached to ARRA in an attempt to maintain a transparent bidding process for contracts. In the case of Heep and One Two Flush, DEP officials noted his contacting them in logs posted publicly by the state to track such transactions.
The federal government is also keeping a close eye on that front ”“ last month the city of New London received a mild knuckle-rapping from federal officials who awarded $400,000 for public housing improvements on condition that the city strengthen its purchasing controls.