A quick blog note in favor of projects that cost less than $100,000. When we first learned about the stimulus, we expected applications to ask for large quantities of cash.
I was surprised, then, to see public libraries in small towns requesting the funds to buy 6 PCs, or 20, or 10.
The public library of Coshocton, OH, population 11,682 in the 2000 census, asked for $30,839 to buy 12 laptops and a smartboard.
The city of Grapevine, TX, a suburb of Fort Worth, asked for $59,954 to build a public computer center that would also teach English language classes.
The Chelmsford Housing Authority, in a relatively affluent town in Massachusetts, asked for $4,200 to buy 6 PCs for internet classes for seniors.
The Springdale Public Library of Springdale, AR, a rapidly growing town of 66,881 (2007) that is the headquarters of Tyson Foods, requested $66,746 to buy 31 laptops that would be served by wireless connections. The application says that 21 percent of the population speaks a language other than English at home and over a quarter did not graduate from high school.
The government appears to fear — correctly — that some will try to steal or to misdirect stimulus funds. It seems to me that the use of cash in projects such as these should be particularly easy to track. I am strongly in favor of most — not all — of the 50 applications that asked for less than $100,000 being funded