Nevada credited with New York stimulus jobs

One slip of the mouse or a few faulty keystrokes is all it takes to send nine upstate New York jobs to Nevada.

That is the latest lesson to emerge from the federal government's effort to track every penny of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Nevada data on the government Web site, Recovery.gov, has two flubs in its breakdown by zip code of stimulus spending and job creation.

Nine jobs and $754,400 in funding attributed to Nevada can be traced to a zip code in Kingston, N.Y.

And a mistyping of a Carson City postal code makes it appear that $960,000 and three jobs went to a place that doesn't exist.

The federal government, which is the clearinghouse for a massive amount of stimulus data submitted by states, has pledged to correct data entry mistakes.

The issue got attention last year amid reports in Nevada and elsewhere of Recovery Act funding and jobs going to nonexistent congressional districts. The problems since have been fixed.

"We are going through the reports with a fine-tooth comb, identifying mistakes and working with filers to correct them," G. Edward DeSeve, a special adviser to President Barack Obama on the stimulus package, wrote in November.

Jim Scarantino, editor of the Web site, New Mexico Watchdog, said he hopes the federal government makes good on its pledge.

"Obviously, they need to review this stuff before they put it out there," said Scarantino, who has helped bring national attention to the data flaws.

Despite the zip code problem, Nevada still credits the stimulus with creating or saving about 4,500 jobs.

Contact reporter Alan Maimon at amaimon@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0404.