With $66 million of the $120 million in ARRA grants received, the CNMI was able to create or preserve 471 jobs, according to an ARRA quarterly report as of June 30.
The economic stimulus package was the first vote cast by Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan on his first term and he stated in his weekly report that “I continue to believe this was the right decision.”
Of the 471 jobs, 297 were from the education sector benefiting from the $36,346,681 and $8,086,914 in ARRA grants for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund-Education Fund received by the Office of the Governor.
Of the $36.35 million awarded, $20.65 million in funds were received that allowed the Public School System to create six jobs and saved 50 “good-paying teaching and school support staff positions” that reduced class size, offered more Advanced Placement classes, Career and Technical Education classes, and expanded educational opportunities for the CNMI students.
The $7,038,824 in funds received by PSS saved 44 full-time positions at Garapan Elementary School which would have been cut owing to the FY’10 fiscal deficit stemming from the reduction in Compact-Impact funds that benefited PSS.
For the CNMI’s cross-island road improvements, the commonwealth government was awarded $3,457,700 of which $251,073 funded 53 jobs.
The $5 million in ARRA funds used to defray costs of rehabilitating Runway 7/25 of the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport helped pay for 23 jobs.
A total of 30 jobs benefited from the $317,619 of the $1.829 million in ARRA funds received by the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. through the Environmental Protection Agency.
This water and sewer line project helped maintain the jobs of the engineers, project coordinator, Computer Aided Design and Drafting operators and construction inspector.
Another contractor for the project, GPPC Inc., logged a total of 15,901 man-hours spent with 28.39 jobs created and maintained by GPPC based on a 40-hour week for 14 weeks.
Another CUC funded project, the $1.1 million ARRA-Wastewater Treatment Construction Program/Sewage Treatment Facilities project, received $124,517 that helped pay for 29.72 jobs.
A total of 22.24 more jobs were funded through the $1.43 million of the $1.829 million ARRA grant for CUC’s drinking water infrastructure set-aside program.
The COPS Hiring Recovery Program of the Department of Public Safety was awarded $519,048 and received $144,919 so far that helped retain the jobs of nine police officers. Although no new jobs were created, the nine police cadets received an initial salary raise of $3,000 with paperwork underway to renew their positions through the remainder of the grant.
The CNMI’s other agencies continue to benefit from the stimulus grants.
Elsewhere in the United States, the Congressional Budget Office issued its report that claimed the stimulus law increased the number of people with jobs by 1 million to 2.9 million between April and June 2011.
The report stated that ARRA lowered the unemployment rate for that quarter by 0.5 to 1.6 percentage points which CBO claimed would have been above 10 percent “without the law’s stimulative provisions.” It also stated ARRA boosted economic growth in that quarter by 0.8 to 2.5 percent.
CBO also estimates, compared with what would have occurred otherwise, ARRA will raise real GDP in 2012 by between 0.3 percent and 0.8 percent and raise the number of people employed in 2012 by between 0.4 million and 1.1 million.
