Posts Tagged ‘funding’

One Percent of Stimulus Should Go to Oversight

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

The GAO report shows that organizations that are managing the stimulus money are overwhelmed. They need people, and in order to hire people, they need cash.

I think that one percent of the $787 billion stimulus should go to oversight. That’s $7.87 billion. For the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus, the organizations involved would get $72 million.

Assuming they’re hiring someone for a year at 40 hours per week for 50 weeks, at a rate of $50 per hour, each person costs $100,000. Assume the total cost of hiring and benefits etc. brings that to $150,000 per person.

That hires 480 people, which is reasonable. Some visit projects, at least one in each state _and territory_ and some work in DC helping evaluate grants.

Overall, this money would employ about 48,000 people — which may seem a lot — but they’re needed!

Furthermore, to the extent that the stimulus is primarily about creating jobs and secondly about not wasting money, this $7.2 billion expense would be well spent, according to the goals of the program.