Did Ruston Miss The Boat?

A couple of people have commented this week that Ruston missed the boat by not getting any infrastructure projects on the list for federal stimulus money as reported the New Tribune on Sunday. At recent council meetings, Council Member Hedrick seems to know the most about the stimulus program, so I asked him and the mayor to confirm if Ruston ignored a call to submit a "wish list" and why the Town is moving in the direction they are. Here are their thoughts:
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From Mayor Hopkins:

Ruston never received any project calls and if we had we were unprepared to respond. I know Jim can respond to the Economic Recovery Plan better than I can but we are preparing our projects so they are ready as soon as possible should any money become available. I know you were at the last council meeting when our town engineer clearly stated that we need fully engineered projects with associated costs if we were going to be "Shovel Ready". We anticipate having our two projects "Shovel Ready" for possibly the next round of funds.

The Wall Street Journal lists where the first wave of the funds are projected to go and here is the Infrastructure breakdown:
Infrastructure
$32 billion Transportation projects
$31 billion Construction and repair of federal buildings and other public infrastructure
$19 billion Water projects
$10 billion Rail and mass transit projects

While the two year package is over $800 billion - $275 billion of that is tax relief and leaves $550 billion over two years. My point is the number seems massive until you start breaking it down and the odds of Ruston receiving any of it will be difficult. We are doing everything in our power to position Ruston so we are ready for any part of that money once it trickles down.

Both council and I have spent a tremendous amount of time exploring every avenue possible to help our town financially.
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From Council Member Hedrick:

I am not aware of any call directly to Ruston, however Governor Gregoire's office made a blanket call of municipalities and local governments to compile lists of infrastructure projects and submit them to her office by the beginning of January. Further, the Association of Washington Cities was coordinating an effort to have cities respond to the Governor's office. What that process has produced are lists of projects, shovel ready or not, of every damn dumb thing some mayor, or city councilmember, or county legislator or transit board member or port commissioner ever wanted to build. Historic barns, footbridges, dog fountains etc. This is in addition to local projects such as mixed-use developments, city parks, museums, performing art centers, monuments, etc.. These lists all sit neatly in a filing cabinet in Dick Thompson's office in Olympia with little to no chance of ever being funded by the economic stimulus package. (Dick Thompson is the advisor to Gov. Gregoire on the federal stimulus package).

As Bruce states above, and Mr. Morrisette explained in what I thought was a vey thorough and frank discussion about local infrastructure finance, the federal economic stimulus package is constructed in a rigid fashion and distributed by existing categories. Federal stimulus funding for sewer projects will be deposited directly into programs such as the public works trust fund where there is a list of prioritized projects that have been engineered and awaiting public funding, even before the notion of a federal stimulus package was conceived. Also, many of these projects I suspect may not even meet the definition of "shovel ready" (120 days) as prescribed by the Obama administration; but that's where the Feds are sending the money. There will be little to no role for state legislatures or local governments to appropriate any of the federal economic stimulus money. Further, the amount of federal funds that will be made available for local water/sewer infrastructure to each of the states is much lower than previously expected.

Not wanting to be divisive, but I think it's worth noting, that during the amount of time Ruston has no engineering services under contract prior to having Mr. Morrisette and his firm on board, Ruston may have lost its opportunity to be positioned in this infrastructure stimulus frenzy had we been able to give the sewer project assignment we commissioned at the last Council meeting to an engineer months ago. When our previous engineering firms services were terminated, Ruston had no firm arrangement for an immediate replacement. It's also fair to say there was not enough confidence among the Council in our engineer at the time to be given the sewer assignment. Regardless, Ruston may have submitted a list of infrastructure projects to Olympia and it would sit neatly in a filing cabinet. Ruston is not ready or even shovel ready with our sewer project and we are certainly not alone with other municipalities across the state.

I am with my Mayor, who I think is trying to get Ruston positioned to get state funding support from the public works trust fund and has explored other options. The federal economic stimulus package, which is more of a state government bail out package, is not a realistic option for Ruston at this particular point in history.

Over my morning coffee -
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Council Member Hedrick also shared this analysis of the federal stimulus package he did for a client recently:

Federal Economic Stimulus:
Long time Olympia stalwart Dick Thompson (former state OFM, DSHS, CTED director and Governor’s Chief of Staff) has been charged by Governor Gregoire to coordinate the state’s effort with the federal economic stimulus package. In discussions with Mr. Thompson it is becoming very clear there will be accountability in how Congress and the Obama administration will distribute federal stimulus funds to the states. The stimulus version recently passed by the U.S. House and the recently marked up version in the U.S. Senate has very tight restrictions on federal funds distributed in existing programs across the board. For example, Washington State will receive funds for K-12 education by program categories that are formula-driven such as Title I, Special Education, and school construction. Mr. Thompson observes that funding for Special Education children’s programs is certainly laudable, but it’s another matter to argue that it’s economic stimulus or creates jobs. Other unexpected issues in the federal stimulus package is that there is heavy restrictions on supplanting state funds with the federal stimulus funds. Meaning, states will not have the ability to use the federal stimulus funds to pay off the state programs for which they are intended and use state funds in those programs to backfill other state spending. Further, the transportation share for Washington and other states is much smaller than expectations. The entire federal package for Washington will only be about $550 million and of that half will be directly disbursed to local or regional transportation organizations.
The federal stimulus package acts much more like a government bail-out package rather than targeted economic stimulus. There is very little opportunity to target resources and serve strategic objectives. Back in Olympia, Legislative budget writers including Reps. Kelli Linville (D-Bellingham) new chair of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee acknowledge this week that the legislature will have very little if any role in determining how federal stimulus funds will be spent. Rep. Hans Dunshee (D-Snohomish) and chair of the House Capital Budget Committee observed, “Congress will get their stimulus program through without any pork barrel spending in it and the expectation will be no less for us here in Olympia.” The concept of accountability is not lost on state lawmakers as they closely monitor the other Washington and the way they have been directive with federal funds. It is clear the Obama administration, after watching the public outcry upon the Bush administration’s handling of the federal bail-out of the banking and auto industries, wants to be able to answer the question; where has the money gone? It has also become the perfect political cover for President Obama’s new tax cut proposal for the middle-class (those under $250,000 annual salary) without having to show how to pay for it.

The goal for Congress is to get the federal stimulus package to the President’s desk to sign into law by the President’s Day break in mid-February. Distribution of funds could then begin by the start of March, just in time for the state’s updated revenue and caseload forecasts.