News
Nov 04 2009
Wyo. official: Federal stimulus records a 'mess'
A top Wyoming official says various federal agencies gave the state conflicting instructions about how to calculate the number of jobs the federal economic stimulus program has created in the state.
Lynne Boomgaarden, director of the Office of State Lands and Investments, heads Wyoming's Recovery and Reinvestment Team.
Boomgaarden told members of the Wyoming Legislature's Joint Appropriations Committee on Monday that the state's latest estimate is that state and local stimulus spending has created or retained the equivalent of 466 jobs.
However, Boomgaarden said her office received different and frequently conflicting advice from different federal agencies about how to calculate the number of jobs the stimulus program has created in the state. She said her office hustled last week to meet a federal deadline to submit updated job information.
Wyoming had reported early last month that state and local stimulus spending had created the equivalent of 515 jobs. The figure dropped as federal officials reviewed the preliminary state numbers.
Sen. Curt Meier, R-LaGrange, questioned how Boomgaarden's office calculated that the Wyoming Governor's Office had created more than 18 jobs when it had received less than $19,000 from the stimulus program.
"I don't know what this data is worth," Meier said.
Boomgaarden responded that the job number reflect the hours that people worked. She said the federal government doesn't want to report either too many or too few jobs.
Yet, Boomgaarden said, "This is political at this point, let's face it."
Speaking during a recess, Meier said he didn't trust the numbers on job creation.
"It has no bearing whatsoever on full-time employment," Meier said. "When the federal government can say there are millions of jobs created when it's one person for a day, it's ridiculous."
Chris Boswell, chief of staff to Gov. Dave Freudenthal, attended the JAC meeting.
"For our purposes, what we focus on are the federal reporting requirements," Boswell said. "The frustration is that frequently the reporting requirements change."
The federal stimulus program has expended more than $51 million in Wyoming through September, Boomgaarden said. She said the federal program has awarded more than $415 million to the state so far.
Boomgaarden said a new federal Web site that's designed to track federal payments to the states is "a mess."
She said the site improperly showed that $39 million her office received for water projects had gone through the state Revenue Department.
And she said the Web site didn't account for the money at all under its list of top infrastructure grants.
While Wyoming is in compliance with federal reporting requirements, Boomgaarden said she believes that problems with the federal Web site may misinform the public.
Boomgaarden said her office didn't have a breakdown on funding to local governments from the stimulus program.
