Jackson Free Press

The stimulus is coming, and it's bringing big money. The Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review told the Mississippi House Ways and Means Committee that the economic impact of the federal stimulus package on the state could equal $5.12 billion, (equivalent to almost 6 percent of Mississippi's Gross State Product) after tax breaks.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, tossing all subtlety aside, asked PEER analyst Corey Wiggins to repeat the figure for committee members and the press filling the committee meeting room to capacity.

PEER analysts estimate the package will provide more than $479 million to the Department of Education to restore money cut from the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which legislators sliced under orders from Gov. Haley Barbour. An additional $172 million will go to Title 1 education grants to local schools and school improvement —not including $126 million for special education. Colleges will also benefit from an additional $487 million in Pell grants and another $2.3 million for work study programs. Joining that are adult education programs, such as the $1.3 million slated for education for the homeless, and other services.

The stimulus offers seductive possibilities for neighborhood redevelopment, with $32.5 million estimated to channel through the Mississippi Development Authority to the Public Housing Capital Fund, and another $9 million destined for Community Development Block Grants.

Obama sold the stimulus bill primarily on the new infrastructure development it would provide. States may not funnel stimulus money to fill budget holes, but must direct it to new construction or repairs. Analysts expect $354.5 million to go toward the state's highways and bridges, through the Department of Transportation and local governments. An additional $25.4 million will go to urban and rural transit capital grants.

The stimulus has big plans for human services, with $65.1 million headed to the Mississippi Department of Human Services for the Head Start program, as well as elderly care, community services, child-care development, and foster care and adoption assistance.

The state's efforts in crime prevention will get a boost with $1.2 million headed for the attorney general's office for crime victims' assistance and compensation, and funding for law enforcement for internet crimes against children, not to mention the additional $22.5 million going to the Department of Public Safety.

Slated for a remarkable financial boost, the Department of Employment Security could receive a total allocation of $58.3 million for unemployment benefits and the additional administrative expenses incurred by changing state unemployment policy.

Wiggins informed the committee that the state would first have to change its laws to allow more unemployment compensation, and expand the qualification of applicants.

Law changes would have to include providing an additional $25 per week in unemployment compensation for eligible recipients, providing unemployment to individuals seeking part-time work, and the altering of state laws to allow additional coverage for individuals separated by a job for compelling family reasons—including domestic violence, disability of immediate family member or relocation due to employment. Yet another requirement is for the state to provide benefits to any unemployed individual who has sought regular unemployment compensation provided under state law and who has enrolled in a state approved training program authorized under the Workforce Investment Act.

"Right now the state doesn't meet any of these requirements," Wiggins said.

And it will continue to fall short of the requirements if Gov. Haley Barbour sticks to his guns. Barbour has voiced concerns over the stipulations, arguing that the state's financial commitments will outlive the benefits of the stimulus package.

Barbour is toying with the idea of tossing the portion of the package pertaining to unemployment compensation. He joins South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in preferring to pick and choose portions of the stimulus instead of the whole thing.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, argued in a letter to U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag that cherry picking the stimulus is unconstitutional.

"To allow such picking and choosing would, in effect, empower the governors with a line-item veto authority that President Obama himself did not possess at the time he signed the legislation," Schumer wrote.

Attorney General Jim Hood joined McCoy in urging Barbour to accept the money.

"We're talking about a tremendous influx of money just in the law enforcement community. It's going to mean $23.813 million available in Mississippi," Hood said, and cautioned that state resources needed to be ready to properly direct the funds when they arrived. "That's a lot of money to hit the ground as fast as this hits the ground, and you know what's going to happen when that happens. Everybody's going to grab for it and we need to be ready to make sure it goes where it needs to go."

State Auditor Stacey Pickering, a Republican, said he believed the money was going to come to Mississippi, despite the politicization, and he agreed with Hood that the state needed to mobilize to properly handle the flood of cash.

"There's a lot of political posturing going on right now, but we're confident the state will be receiving millions of dollars as part of the stimulus package to get the money moving," Pickering said. "Regardless of whether or not we disagree with it, my job is to get the state ready when it does arrive. We've got to be ready as a state and local government to be able to deal with accountability issues and make sure it's transparent to the taxpayers. We had less than a half percent of fraud with the Hurricane Katrina money spent in Mississippi, and we can be efficient with this too."

McComb Democrat Rep. David Myers, chairman of the House Municipalities Committee, warned that much of the money will come down in the form of block grants, meaning municipalities will have to compete with each other to get it. He added that cities will need to have their annual audit reports ready in order to qualify, and that some cities and towns have not prepared audit reports in years.

"Without an audit report they won't qualify for this money," Myers said. "They have no idea how much they've even got in the bank. They're probably spending more money than they actually have. All cities should submit an annual report and it has to be real soon because this money is going to be available in a short number of days."

Pickering said his office was compiling a two-page application to simplify the process for cities needed help.