Oregon Public Broadcasting

With the long-awaited federal stimulus bill now signed into law, billions of dollars will soon begin trickling down to state and local governments. Elected officials across the Northwest must now make decisions about where to send that money. Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports what it means for transportation in the Inland Northwest.

Now, he and his staff are starting to pick which projects most closely follow the rules in the stimulus package. Those rules give priority to projects in low-income areas.Jeff Selle: “I’ve got our G-I-S people looking at the census tracts to determine what areas are considered economically depressed in Spokane County and we’ll weed our projects down using those criteria.”Every state and local government is developing its own method for allocating money.

Idaho Governor Butch Otter has created what he calls a “stimulus executive committee”.

During the next 30 days, that group will review how state agencies plan to spend their stimulus money and report to the governor.