February 17, 2014, will mark five years since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - what many know as the "Stimulus Law."
It may be hard to believe, but Uncle Sam is still handing out contracts funded with that same stimulus money - five years later.
Back in 2009, the White House argued that the "Recovery Act is working to cushion the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and lay a new foundation for economic growth."
One might have thought that effort to spur economic growth would have meant getting all of that money out the door as fast as possible - but government records show the feds are still making awards in 2014 with 'stimulus' money.
Of the original $787 billion stimulus plan about $500 billion was in spending; government records show various agencies still parceling out those dollars - and even planning to be doing so into at least 2015.
Just this weekend, the Defense Logistics Agency awarded a $285,461 contract to a New Jersey firm to build a new 42 inch sewer line for a hospital at Fort Hood, Texas.
Emblazoned on the official contract award notice is the word "RECOVERY," signifying the use of money from the Recovery Act.
In January, the feds issued a $500,993 contract to a company in Indiana to perform work on electronic health records, with the money coming from the 2009 stimulus law.
A description of the contract award shows it involves data entry for health records, as the company will 'enter data into the HITECH Fiscal Intermediary Standard System (FISS) screens for all Subsection (d) Hospitals."
That award also had the "RECOVERY" graphic on it as well.
Unused Recovery Act funds seem to have come in handy for the General Services Administration, which is using between $110 million and $125 million to rehab a federal building in Portland, Oregon.
The project originally was designed two years ago - but - according to the Recovery award notice - "was put on hold when Congress did not appropriate the construction funding."
So, the GSA looked somewhere else for the money - and found it - in the Stimulus Law.
"This project is now being funded under American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)," reads the latest description of the plan, issued in late December.
"The project is being re-scoped to align more closely with the High Efficiency Green Building requirements (Energy Independence and Security Act, EISA) as mandated by ARRA," the award states.
Another Recovery Act project issued last November by the Department of Transportation is worth $5 million - for a "Monitoring and Technical Assistance Contract (MTAC) for the Federal Railroad Administration Grant and Loan Program."
Other examples of Stimulus Law funding found from 2013 and 2014:
+ The Social Security Administration paid Northop Grumman almost $100,000 "for consulting and engineering services related to a data center migration project."
+ Social Security also paid $157,251 to Koniag Services "for facilities support and mainframe tape storage administration."
+ Social Security awarded a $518,000 contact to Microsoft for "Microsoft Virtualization Technologies" with money from the stimulus.
+ The National Science Foundation is funding utility improvements with Stimulus Law money in support of the "Advanced Technology Solar Telescope" in Hawaii. The money isn't going to anything hi-tech that is related to the telescope - instead it is to support set up utility services for the project. No cost estimate was provided, which will only be available to contractors from Hawaii.
+ The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will use money from the Stimulus Law to fund a contract with the MITRE Corporation from September 30, 2014 to September 29, 2015 paid for with Stimulus Law money. No cost estimate was provided.
So, money from the Stimulus Law will still be going out the door late into 2015 - by then well over six years after it was signed into law.
That kind of time frame might not be exactly what was envisioned when the Congress approved the money in the first few weeks after President Obama took office in 2009.
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