Oregon Public Broadcasting

Wednesday Oregon’s Governor visited work crews who owe their jobs to federal stimulus spending.

Since the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act was passed, Oregon’s been busy divvying up $3.9 billion in stimulus money. But how many new jobs does that money buy? OPB’s April Baer checks in.

If your expertise includes slithering into a spider-infested crawlspace...then the state has a job for you this summer.

Mike McMahon   “First thing we do, blowing the floor of this mobile home, we lay poly down, 6 mil, for a ground cover.”

Mike McMahon and his crew are on the verge of a busy summer, weatherizing homes in Clark County, Washington.

The compound they’re rolling out will prevent radon from seeping in, and seal the single-wide from heat-loss. The work is surprisingly technical -- not just taping plastic over windows.

Mike McMahon: “It’s gritty work -- just the nature of it. A lot of the people we look for are the true grit kind of guys.  Kids like our new hire Preston, he was a high school athlete, a wrestler and a baseball player.”

The crew with Richart Builders isn’t actually working on the federal payroll -- yet. Congress sent the money to the state capitol, that moved cash  along to the county, which in turn tipped off company owner Rick Richart that there’ll be lots of work this summer.

Rick Richart   “They’ve been accelerating the spending of their existing funding, in preparation for this new spending to come to us.”

Richart has 37 staff lined up for contracts that begin in the next few weeks.  That’s thirteen more people than   the 24 he hired last year.

Pay range for the industry varies widely depending on workers’ experience. But someone with a little experience can earn the full-time equivalent of  $30,000 or more. Some have benefits, others don't.

Weatherization’s just one of dozens of stimulus  grantees funneling payroll cash to the Northwest. Some jobs, like the weatherizers or brush-clearing crews, are easily quantified.

Others are not. For example, $115 million has been funneled into K-12 schools. State leaders need to show the feds how many jobs that cash created or preserved. But the information won’t be available until next year.

The Oregon Department of Justice just landed over half a million dollars of stimulus money to investigate and prosecute internet sex predators.

That money will retain two special agents, partially fund one new hire, and equip existing staff.

It's one example of how the stimulus cash fits in with the patchwork that makes up state and local budgets.  But there is one area where state officials can be specific: stimulus cash for transportation construction.

Courtney Warner  "It was really for shovel-ready projects that were ready to go. A lot of these were for paving, projects that hadn't been funded in the past few years."

Courtney Warner is with the Governor's Economic Recovery Executive team.

She says 137 projects have received the green light from the Department of Transportation. They're in the early stages. A new bridge in Baker City, employing 37 people.  A new cable barrier on a stretch of I-5, employing 70. Railroad track repairs in Prineville -- eleven more positions.

All told: about 4600 full-time transportation construction jobs active or nearly active for summer. None of them will keep people employed more than a year. But that's typical for construction.

State Senator Frank Morse, a Republican from Albany, says it's too early to tell if the stimulus has translated into a success for job creation.

Frank Morse "There is so much uncertainty with the impact of flooding the economy with so much money."

Senator Morse, along with some economists, hopes  things may start to turn around later this year. But he has his eye on other measures the state is taking to raise revenue.

Frank Morse:   "You can put money in as a stimulus, and take money out in taxation, and the net result may be actually negative in our state, and that's what I'm concerned about."

If there's one common criticism about the stimulus -- even from people who are grateful for it -- it's a question of scale. The federal government demanded stimulus money be spent on shovel-ready projects. That eliminated large public works that need extensive planning from consideration.

Congressman Peter Defazio has voiced a lengthy list of misgivings about the stimulus. He  said taxpayers deserved public works more enduring than road patches. But he said this week the transportation spending bill he's helping to craft in Washington may create more substantial jobs.

He's even warming to the idea of a national infrastructure bank, to marry public and private investment for large-scale projects.

Peter Defazio   "A year ago, I'd say, gee, states with good credit ratings can go out and borrow the money just as cheaply as we could do this, but today that's not so."

Governor Kulongoski has also outlined more ambitious construction as part of a $960 million transportation  bill that the Oregon Legislature is working on this week.

Online:

ARRA Central for Oregon

Oregon DOT's Recovery web page