Utah Community Action Partnership - Helping People. Changing Lives.

On February 13, 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was signed into law, by President Obama on February 17, 2009. A direct response to the economic crisis, the Recovery Act has three immediate goals:

• Create new jobs as well as save existing ones;
• Spur economic activity and invest in long-term economic growth; and
• Foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending.

• Providing $288 billion in tax cuts and benefits for millions of working families and businesses
• Increasing federal funds for education and health care as well as entitlement programs (such as extending unemployment benefits) by $224 billion
• Making $275 billion available for federal contracts, grants and loans
• Requiring recipients of Recovery funds to report quarterly on the amount of monies spent, the status of the project, the number of jobs created and/or saved, and other details, all of which are posted on Recovery.gov so that the public can track where the total $787 billion Recovery funds are going and how they are being spent.
• In addition to offering financial aid directly to local school districts, expanding the Child Tax Credit, and underwriting a process to computerize health records to reduce medical errors and save on health care costs, the Recovery Act is targeted at infrastructure development and enhancement. For instance, the Act plans investment in the domestic renewable energy industry and the weatherizing of 75 percent of federal buildings as well as more than one million private homes around the country.

Much of that money will flow through state governments. Across America, states are in deep financial trouble. The exact amount Utah will receive in ARRA funding is unknown, but Utahns can expect approximately $1.6 billion in increases in existing federal programs. Much of the federal stimulus package funding that will come to Utah will be distributed via formula-based funding. A formula distribution means that allocations will be made to certain recipients through existing formulas in use by the federal government.

According to current information, Utah expects to receive about $1.6 billion in formula funding for existing federal programs and additional dollars in competitive and discretionary grants and in funding to local governments. Here are some of the categories that has or will receive ARRA funding:

Education: $443 million
Workforce Services: $37 million
Public Safety: $11.4 million
Housing: $23 million
Health: $353.6 million
Weatherization: $37.8 million
Child Care: $68.1 million
Energy/Water Quality: $103.7 million
Medicaid: $204 million
Nutrition: $91.9 million
Public Transit: $58.1 million
Roads and Bridges: $213.5 million

For more detailed information about ARRA in Utah, click here or visit www.recovery.utah.gov.