Grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 have created more than 55 jobs at Syracuse University so far, according to the U.S. government’s official Recovery Act website.

These jobs are just a small portion of the 2.2 million to 2.8 million jobs that have been created following 2010’s first quarter, according to the latest stimulus report from President Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers.

SU received seven grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, totaling more than $10 million, according to the Recovery Act website. The money was granted to SU to create research jobs and Work-Study, all which went into effect this academic year. SU received $10 million of the $787 billion granted across the nation.

The official number of jobs created at SU due to the Recovery Act is 55.77. One job is equivalent to a full-time job, totaling 40 hours per week. This measurement of jobs in terms of full-time positions is why it’s possible to have 0.77 of a job, said Cheryl Arvidson, associate director of communications of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.

Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the Federal Stimulus Plan, into law in February 2009. The stimulus was implemented to stop the economic free fall that was happening in the United States, said Donald Dutkowsky, an economics professor at SU.

“The economy was going through a horrific recession, and gross domestic product was really shrinking at a large rate,” he said. “It was basically designed to stem the economic hemorrhaging that was taking place.”

The stimulus contains $787 billion in total funds, which are distributed among three categories: tax benefits; contracts, loans and grants; and entitlements.

From the stimulus’ start in February 2009 to April 9, 2010, it has paid out $314.6 billion of the total $787 billion, leaving $472.4 billion still left to be paid. The total $314.6 billion includes 168,185 loans, grants and contracts that have been awarded. SU is being awarded precisely $10,154,228.

The $10.1 million paid to the university is distributed among seven grants. The most generous grant totals $8,341,022 and reportedly created 15.14 jobs. This award is primarily for research, as $3.3 million of it is going toward continued support for the High Energy Physics group at SU.

The funds going toward the physics group also account for 7.19 of the 15.14 jobs created from the award. Remaining research initiatives in the award include studying dark matter, organic chemistry materials, active cell culture and the formation of water molecules, among others.

The focus and expanded funding for research is in line with the university’s Center of Excellence and its green initiatives, Dutkowsky said. The awarded funding goes to research such as the investigation of the formation of water molecules, which will aim to help understand the “complex chemistry linked to the emergence and sustainability of life,” according to the Recovery Act website. The water formation investigation was awarded $528,461 from the stimulus and created 0.20 jobs.

The second-largest award is for SU’s Federal Work-Study program, which received $669,358 and has created 33.87 jobs so far. The stimulus has had a positive effect on the university, as more and larger awards are now available for students, said Kaye Devesty, director of the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs.

The Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs always encourages employers to hire students in ways that complement their studies, and now it’s easier for students to find, apply and get jobs, Devesty said.

“It’s been good for us because we’ve had students ask for Work-Study when they havenÕt been able to use it in the past,” she said.
     
The grants to the Work-Study program and research initiatives total $9,010,380 of the total $10,154,228 paid to SU and 49.01 of the total 55.77 jobs created. The remaining amount is spread out among five grants: improving public health literature reports; HIV prevention; understanding of the relationships among interpersonal stress, mood regulation, alcohol lapse and patterns of alcohol use; studying alcohol use and health in young women; and studying the health consequences of teenage childbearing.

The direct effect of the stimulus on universities is the expansion of grant funding, especially to green initiatives, Dutkowsky said. But the indirect effect is the stabilization of the economy that allows students to remain enrolled at SU despite the rising expenditures of a private university, he said.

The federal government is taking a more active role in the Recovery Act, and some people would prefer an alternative route that focused on helping small businesses, Dutkowsky said.

“The biggest problem that people had with it is it expands the federal deficit,” he said. “It expands the deficit with a lot of government appropriations.”

Daniel Fitzpatrick, SU College Republicans president, said he doesn’t see the stimulus as a reliable method to create jobs.

“All it’s done is put us deeper in debt,” he said. “The creator of jobs are businesses.”

As of March 24, New York state ranked second in reported jobs from the stimulus with 42,781 created and/or saved jobs from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. New York also has a current unemployment rate of 8.9 percent, which ranks 28th out of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, according to the Recovery Act website. 

Fitzpatrick said he doesn’t agree with the $219,000 being paid to SU to study alcohol use and health in young women. This money isn’t necessary, as a Facebook group could accomplish the same objective, he said.

The stimulus’ effectiveness is “laughable,” as $5,000 was once paid to a nonexistent district, he said.

Arvidson, associate director of communications of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said Fitzpatrick was making the suggestion the money disappeared, but he was “plain wrong.”

“Early on, there were some instances in recipient reporting. Either through typo or district information, they put in the wrong information,” she said.

All the money that was sent by mistake was accounted for, and the mistake occurred because many people are unaware of which congressional district they live in, Arvidson said. People can no longer make this mistake, as the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board corrected the form that requires recipients to report on what they’re doing with the money they received from the stimulus, she said.

Dutkowsky, the professor of economics, said historians will take a long time to examine how much the stimulus did to prevent the continuation of the economic free fall.

“Historians are going to evaluate just how many jobs it saved or how many jobs it kept or how much it stemmed the hemorrhaging of the economy,” he said.

“The bottom line of where we are now is we are out of the recession,” Dutkowsky said. “We’ve got a ways to go to get full recovery, and we’ll only get to that when the unemployment rate gets down to about 5.5 percent.”

Published on April 20, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Jon: jdharr04@syr.edu