A Boston Globe investigative piece today found that the officially reported number of jobs saved or created from stimulus spending in Massachusetts is "wildly exaggerated."
Here are some examples:
Some of the errors are striking: The community action agency based in Greenfield reported 90 full-time jobs associated with the $245,000 it got for its preschool Head Start program. That averages out to just $2,700 per full-time job. The agency said it used the money to give roughly 150 staffers cost-of-living raises. The figure reported on the federal report was a mistake, a result of a staffer’s misunderstanding of the filing instructions, said executive director Jane Sanders.
Several other Head Start agencies also reported using stimulus funds for pay raises and claimed jobs for it.
Massachusetts property owners received $75.5 million in rental subsidies from the stimulus bill, for a reported total of 437 jobs. Recipients of 27 of the 87 contracts reported zero jobs. The others, meanwhile, simply reported the number of employees working at the property. If they received two contracts, for a larger property, they reported the employee figure twice.
For example, Plumley Village East in Worcester listed 23 jobs for each of its two contracts for a total of 46 jobs, even though it has only 23 employees working throughout the complex.
Recipients said they found the reporting system confusing, leading them to submit information erroneously, and leaving them unable to correct mistakes in their reports. Additionally, the government files are massive and unwieldy. Reports do not distinguish between newly created positions and those that were “retained.’’
I supported the stimulus, but people need to understand that this is money paid for by the deficit that will eventually be paid plus interest by later generations. Giving yourself a raise with the stimulus money rather than adding a real full-time job seems to go against the entire purpose of the stimulus, which was to create jobs and decrease our unemployment.
I truly hope that these are exceptions and that most firms and agencies are keeping honest records and using the money to hire new employees.