Gov. Chet Culver's economic recovery I-JOBS program is off to a slow start, with only $20.7 million - or about 3.5 percent - spent from $596.5 million awarded over the past eight months for roads, bridges, community centers and other projects. The program was created to help Iowa escape the grip of a two-year-long national recession, but the state can't expect an economic boost with so little of the money actually being used, some economists and business leaders say.
"You don't get results until the money is spent. That's just all there is to it," said David Swenson, an economist at Iowa State University. "It's one thing to project impact, but it's another thing to realize it. And what you see is that there's been precious little impact to date." Culver has touted the $830 million I-JOBS program as key to putting many of the state's 110,800 unemployed residents back to work. "We're moving as fast as humanly possible," said Culver on Friday. "I'm very happy with the progress we're making. I see it firsthand as I travel around the state.
"And I guarantee you by late spring and summer, we're going to have a record amount of job creation and economic development in the state." But economists see - and state data show - little evidence so far. Iowa has 7,700 fewer construction workers employed in December than a year earlier. Overall, Iowa has lost 40,100 jobs compared with December 2008. January employment data won't be released until March. A Des Moines Register analysis of data available at the I-JOBS Web site shows little spending for most projects:
- 1,135 of 1,500 total projects had no money funneled into them so far. About 300 projects had less than $100,000 spent on them. - The largest amount of money awarded so far - nearly $200 million to about 570 projects - has no completion date set. - Some of the state's largest spending - such as $100 million to renovate and replace University of Iowa buildings ravaged by flooding - is three to five years away. Culver initially estimated the program would create as many as 30,000 jobs, but backpedaled last month, saying he hoped I-JOBS would create "hundreds if not thousands of jobs." The state expects to release a tally of I-JOBS jobs this week.
"We see some impact, but it's very isolated," said Scott Norvell, chief executive of the Master Builders of Iowa. Norvell said the state needs to refocus spending so that more I-JOBS money is getting spent on "vertical infrastructure" such as courthouses, arenas and schools than "horizontal construction" - roads, bridges and sewers. "The I-JOBS program is well-intended, but the bulk of craft workers with vertical construction - 23 trades - is significantly unemployed, probably upwards of 25 percent," said Norvell. The state unemployment rate in December was 6.6 percent.
Boom in construction coming, state says
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Des Moines Register
Donnelle Eller
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