Follow the Money: Report Tracks Recovery Act Funding in CT

Interested in tracking where all the federal Recovery Act money Connecticut receives is going?

ProPublica.org has released an updated report showing how much stimulus money each state has received under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — including a breakdown by county. The detailed report also lets users search by company/agency name and drill down into specific grants.

Below is a chart showing how much grant money each county in Connecticut —  — received (click on each county name to see a breakdown for that specific county).

Although it appears Hartford County has received a disproportionate share of stimulus money (about $3.3 billion to date, compared to about $500 million for Fairfield County), the report’s authors explain that there is a concentration of state agencies receiving Recovery Act grants in and around the state capitol (in other words, just because a state agency in Hartford received a grant doesn’t necessarily mean all those funds are being spent in Hartford County).

Recipient data reported on Recovery.gov is reconciled with agency data reported on USAspending.gov to arrive at the findings, the reports authors state. The report’s authors claim to have gone through great pains to “scrub” the data and remove any duplicate information.

Stimulus Funds

Unemployment Rate

Name

Total

Per Capita

2009

2010

2011

Fairfield

$501,340,380

$546

7.7

7.9

6.9

Hartford

$3,271,067,380

$3,657

9.1

9.1

7.9

Litchfield

$100,160,988

$528

8.3

8.3

6.9

Middlesex

$72,689,973

$439

6.8

7.2

6.3

New Haven

$854,095,191

$990

9.2

9.6

8.4

New London

$232,194,312

$847

7.8

8.3

7.7

Tolland

$111,224,701

$728

7.1

7.2

6.6

Windham

$146,629,495

$1,237

9.5

9.5

8.5

*Source: ProPublica.org

Interestingly — but perhaps not surprisingly — ProPublica.org uncovered numerous discrepancies in the reporting by Recovery Act recipients. For example, the organization’s reporters “found more than 500 cases where the total amount awarded to all sub-recipients added up to more than the total award amount.” What’s more the non-profit watchdog group “found nearly 200 cases where the awards contained no report by the prime recipient.”