Stimulus money creates, saves some jobs

BY MIKE HELENTHAL

DANVILLE — Those receiving Recovery Act funds agree that measuring the program’s impact on local job creation is difficult, if not impossible.

Recipient agents were expected to make an estimate of jobs “created” or “saved” prior to project approval and the figures are reported on the www.recovery.gov Web site. Illinois ranks seventh among all states for the number of jobs projected at nearly 25,000.

In reality, the area’s total number of jobs created or saved is more of a “guestimate,” even as work and renovation projects are being put into action locally.

“Were jobs created? I don’t know,” said Greg Hilleary, director of the Danville Housing Authority. “Did they hire new people? Probably not. That piece has been a tough nut.”

DHA received more than $1 million for several renovation projects and Hilleary said he did his best to estimate the job-making impact of the work.

“We tried to make a conservative estimate,” he said, noting in the end he settled for 14.

Renovation work by the Vermilion County Housing Authority in Hoopeston, costing a third of the DHA project, carries an estimate of one job created.

It’s not that projects won’t produce work contracts, Hilleary said; it’s just hard to measure the depth of their impact.

After turning in the jobs estimate, Hilleary said he received a federal chart outlining how to estimate jobs numbers. Using that chart, the number here would have been much higher.

“I just wasn’t really comfortable with what they were saying,” he said, noting conversations with sidewalk workers — one of the few projects already started — indicated they had been without work before the DHA contract.

Boost for agency

The situation is almost reversed for Dwight Lucas, leader of East Central Illinois Community Action Agency.

According to the government Web site, the more than $2.5 million in stimulus funding won’t create a single job — which Lucas said isn’t true.

He said new program money had allowed him to expand his three-county full-time staff by 20, which doesn’t even include the impact of an expanded weatherizing program, the additional interns who have been placed in the area or the temporary positions created with the tripling of this year’s summer youth-work program.

“Some of those kids got full-time jobs,” he said. “Some of them used those jobs to help support their families.”

The added money has helped create a much-needed Head Start program in Gibson City; some has been set aside to help staff members attain bachelor’s degrees; some will fund an ex-offender job-training program for area-only residents next year.

“It has helped us improve the infrastructure of the community, which is a long-term benefit,” he said. “All of it (stimulus money) has gone into the local economy. We have hired contractors who have hired workers who have spent their paychecks locally. Things are happening.”

Frank Wright, owner of Danville-based Wright’s Heating and a recipient of one of ECICAA’s contracts, said the work has allowed him to hire two full-time employees.

“I was leery of the whole stimulus thing at first, but they got it right,” he said. “It’s really generating jobs and working.”

Wright said the contract for low-income housing had led to additional referrals, which led to the hiring of two employees in addition to the contract work. It also led the company to purchase two more vehicles and equipment (locally, he added), and at least two of the new employees had purchased vehicles since being hired.

“And it’s helping people, too,” he said. “We had a guy today who was in tears thanking us. He had no money and he was going to freeze.”

DACC surge

Danville Area Community College also has pressed the majority of its $1 million-plus in stimulus money into jobs-related ser-vices, most of the money added to the dislocated worker and youth grant programs.

Brian Hensgen, director of the college’s Junior Training Partnership Act program, said the demand for job training — and work force retraining — has skyrocketed with the onset of the area’s ongoing double-digit unemployment rate.

“Our numbers have doubled,” Hensgen said. “There are a lot of people who want to be ready for when the economy turns around.”

Stimulus money helped fund a summer jobs program that placed 75 students “in meaningful jobs gaining real-world experience.” There is also money secured to continue the program through June 2011.

“This has given us the opportunity to really serve the clients who have needed our assistance,” he said.

DACC President Alice Jacobs said the college has experienced the largest enrollment increase in the state.

“(The stimulus money) has made a huge difference,” she said. “People are doing what the president suggested they do — up-grading their skills now so they’re more prepared when they seek a job.”

Other jobs-related projects tied to the current round of stimulus funding (federal officials have hinted there may be more coming) include three road-resurfacing projects in Danville funded through the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The jobs estimate for the work is nearly 30 jobs for projects totaling almost $5 million.

A $763,000 grant to Danville is expected to create three jobs through the city’s COPS program.

GOOD NEWS

Local projects reporting job created or saved through the use of stimulus money include:

-- Danville Housing Authority, 14 jobs

-- Vermilion County Housing Authority, 1 job

-- City of Danville (COPS program), 3 jobs

-- Veterans Affairs (cemetery renovation), 1 job

-- DACC (JTPA), 1 job

-- ECICAA, 20-plus jobs (not reported on site)

-- City of Danville (Southgate expansion), estimated 40 construction/12 full-time jobs for total project.

-- Area IDOT resurfacing projects, 29.91 jobs

Source, http://www.recovery.gov.

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