U.S. funds stimulate 366 jobs

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Department of Transportation reported Monday that it had created 366 jobs in September using some of the $208.7 million in federal stimulus funds it's receiving.

Ninety of the people put to work are rebuilding a depot and doing other projects on the old Virginia & Truckee Railroad line between Carson City and Virginia City. The railroad went out of business in 1950 but reopened in August as a $48 round-trip Saturday tourist excursion train.

Most of the others are working on projects laying pavement on deteriorating roads throughout the state.

Seventeen miles of Interstate 15 from the California state line toward Las Vegas will be repaved for $10 million. Another $14 million will be spent on repaving the freeway in the Bunkerville and Mesquite areas.

Also, the state will spend $26 million repaving U.S. Highway 95 in the area between the roads to Lee and Kyle canyons. Another $3.7 million will go to improving a visitors center on Highway 95 near Laughlin, and $3.5 million will be spent on landscaping projects on the same highway between Martin Luther King and Rainbow boulevards in Las Vegas.

The report to the federal government comes at a time when state officials are under fire for not putting stimulus dollars -- and Nevadans -- to work as quickly as expected. State officials say the stimulus job figures will pick up, providing a boost to a state with high unemployment.

"We could have spent all of our money on one or two projects, like in other states, but we decided to spend it preserving our existing system," said Scott Magruder, a Transportation Department spokesman. "We weren't in a race to get the money spent."

Magruder said most of the projects are only beginning now, and employment numbers will increase in coming months.

All state agencies that received federal stimulus funds are required to report by Saturday what they have done with the money and how many jobs were created. The information must be reported to the federal agency from which the money was received. The Transportation Department sent its report to Federal Highway Administration officials.

Rep. Dina Titus and Shelley Berkley, both D-Nev., said the department's job creation figures should embarrass Gov. Jim Gibbons.

"Our economy is suffering, Nevadans need jobs now, and yet the governor is on a slow-motion Sunday drive when it comes to using these stimulus dollars for transportation projects," said Berkley in a statement.

"With Nevada's unemployment at record levels, recovery act funds are critical to create jobs and put people back to work," Titus added. "The state needs to act with a greater sense of urgency and put this money to use with the utmost speed, efficiency and transparency."

Charles Harvey, Nevada's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act director, said last week that it would be some time after Saturday before he would know how many jobs have been created from all stimulus funds.

Harvey told The Associated Press that state agencies will report their spending directly to the federal government, and that information will be made available with links through the federal Web site.

He added that the notion of a "centralized" reporting point might need to be re-evaluated.

Harvey had been hired under an executive order by Gibbons as part of a dispute over whether the governor or the Legislature controlled stimulus funds.

Gibbons held a news conference to tout the need for a powerful "stimulus czar."

The governor repeatedly has promised a full accounting and transparency in the state's use of stimulus funds.

But so far, the state stimulus Web site -- www.nv.gov/recovery -- offers only information on which agencies are receiving the $2.192 billion in total stimulus funds. Viewers can't find information on how the funds are being spent by the agencies. Parts of the Web site have not been updated since July 19.

At a legislative hearing two weeks ago, embarrassed administration officials could report only three jobs that had been created so far from stimulus funds.

The jobs created by the Transportation Department do not include any from projects it funded that are being carried out by local Regional Transportation Commission officials.

About $60 million of the stimulus funds received by the Transportation Department were given to local transportation agencies in Clark, Washoe and rural Nevada counties.

But the state is spending about $25 million repaving Interstate 80 in portions of Lander, Pershing and Humboldt counties.

Another $2.4 million will go to constructing an overpass on U.S. Highway 93, north of Wells. Many cars and trucks have collided with deer and elk that cross the highway at that particular spot.

Still another $26 million goes to adding ramps and frontage roads on U.S. Highway 395 near Reno's Meadowood Mall.

The department will direct other stimulus dollars to repaving projects in Clark County: $6.6 million to replace 19 miles of pavement on U.S Highway 93 as it approaches the Lincoln County line and $4.6 million to resurface Pecos Road from Colton Avenue to Las Vegas Boulevard, and Lake Mead Boulevard from Rancho Drive to Tonopah Drive.

Contact Capital Bureau chief Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or 775-687-3901.