The report, by the non-partisan Iowa Fiscal Partnership, found that an average of 52,917 Iowans per week benefited from the unemployment insurance provisions of ARRA, each receiving $25 more per week and a federal extension of benefits. That direct spending for unemployment insurance included in the federal stimulus, along with ripple effects from that spending, produced $501.7 million increased economic activity and $112.1 million in income in 2009, creating or saving 3,727 jobs.

For the current year, the researchers also found direct and indirect benefits but in lower amounts, $314.6 million activity, $68.6 million income and 2,258 jobs.

“More and longer unemployment benefits have helped Iowans most affected by the recession meet their basic living needs while they search for new jobs. It also has saved jobs for Iowans who, but for the stimulus, might have also found themselves without work,” said Andrew Cannon, who co-authored the report.

The report found that every $100 million in federal dollars invested in Iowa’s unemployment insurance system sustains 1,001 jobs earning $30.1 million in labor incomes in Iowa’s economy.

Nearly 1.2 million unemployed Americans – including an estimated 76,000 Iowa workers – face an imminent cutoff of government unemployment benefits if Congress cannot pass emergency legislation to extend federal benefits before funding expires Sunday.

“… Funding for construction, technology and a medical home demonstration project won’t just save more money, and create more jobs, they’ll give more people the peace of mind of knowing that health care will be there for them and their families when they need it. Ultimately, that’s what health reform is really all about,” Obama said.

Primary Health Care Inc. of Des Moines is slated to receive more than $2.6 million. The nonprofit organization maintains dental and medical clinics in Des Moines as well as a community access pharmacy, HIV services and outreach project. It also operates a medical and dental clinic in Marshalltown.

Although the clinics provide services to patients who have insurance, they specifically cater to those who are uninsured or underinsured. According to their Web site, Primary Health Care Inc. strives “to find and successfully treat medical condition before they become serious enough to require hospitalization or emergency treatment.”

It has also developed several specialized programs.

The Outreach Program specifically targets populations that often fall through the cracks in existing health care.

Health Care for the Homeless is a federally funded program that serves individual, families, street youth and homeless children in a non-traditional clinic setting. A federally-funded program called Enhancement provides mental health and substance abuse care for homeless clients.

The organization has also developed a four-point program for maternal child health that consists of a combination of state and federally-funded programs to provide service to pregnant women, newly expanding families and newborns up to age 6. Their Families in Transition program, which is funded through U.S. Housing and Urban Development, serves both prenatal or parenting families up to a child’s 15th birthday, and allows case workers to link homeless individuals to medical and mental health services as well as affordable and safe living environments.

Clinics that participate in the Outreach Program are located in six different sites throughout Des Moines, placing them within the areas of the community that are experiencing the most need.

To qualify for funding, the health facility had to be a federally-qualified community health center. Grants of $508.5 million were provided through the Facility Investment Program to address pressing health center facility needs. Also, as much as $88 million was made available to help Health Center Controlled Networks improve operational effectiveness and clinical quality in health centers by providing management, financial, technology and clinical support services.

The new Recovery Act funds are the latest in a series of grants awarded to community health centers, which deliver preventive and primary care services nationally at more than 7,500 service delivery sites around the country to patients regardless of their ability to pay.  Across the country health centers serve more than 17 million patients, about 40 percent of whom have no health insurance.

Primary Health Care produced a video in October to provide more information about Iowa services.

“Increased Medicaid spending has an economic benefit for the state of Iowa far greater than the federal government’s initial investment,” explained David Swenson, an economist at Iowa State University and co-author of the new policy brief.

The brief, “Just What the Doctor Ordered,” estimates that Iowa, due to Medicaid funding provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, has seen a $252 million increase in the value of goods and services produced in the state during fiscal year 2009, and $114 million in income for 2,354 workers in created or saved jobs.

In addition, Iowa is poised to see a $449 million increase in the value of goods and services produced in the state for fiscal year 2010, and $203 million in income for 4,206 workers.

“Every federal dollar of economic stimulus invested in Medicaid yields about $1.68 in total output for the state of Iowa. Out of that dollar, 76 cents is returned to Iowa workers in the form of wages and salaries and incomes of small business owners,” Swenson said.

The federal government allocated $150 million for fiscal 2009 and an estimated $268 million for fiscal 2010 for Iowa’s Medicaid program, which is jointly funded by the state and federal government. Under the stimulus package, the federal government boosted its share of the funding to help states keep pace with increased demands for assistance during the recession.

Molly Fleming and Peter Fisher, both researchers with the non-partisan Iowa Policy Project, helped co-author the brief and believe that the Medicaid funding boost has been important to states and their economies.

The brief notes that in May 2009, Medicaid provided essential health care coverage for 420,587 state residents, or nearly 1 in 7 Iowans. Enrollment has risen 13 percent from October 2007.

“In a recession, revenues fall just when more people need to rely on Medicaid and other safety-net services,” Fleming said. “If states don’t have revenues, they may have to make major cuts to Medicaid to keep their budgets balanced.

“The recovery — or stimulus — legislation was designed to help states avoid those kinds of cuts, which not only could hurt people who really need help, but also could hurt the economy generally. Budget cuts by the state would aggravate a recession, because that lost spending causes further reductions in household incomes as people lose jobs or hours at work. Then they have less to spend.”

The Iowa Fiscal Partnership is a join budget and tax policy initiative of IPP in Iowa City and another nonpartisan organization, the Child and Family Policy Center in Des Moines.

Jon Murphy, director of the Office of State-Federal Relations

From money spent on highway projects to subcontractors hired to weatherize homes, every payment must be reported and justified. With more than 20 state agencies receiving funds, and dozens of programs within those departments administering recovery act dollars, keeping tabs on expenses and avoiding fraud and waste is a Herculean task. And it falls on a group of state employees appointed by Gov. Chet Culver, led by Jon Murphy, director of the Iowa Office of State-Federal Relations.

Murphy’s name might not be familiar to most Iowans and he hasn’t garnered a lot of attention since he was appointed to his post in 2007. But he, along with the rest of his team, is charged with coordinating every department and program that receives stimulus money, ensuring that they are in compliance with federal requirements and are properly reporting how money is spent.

“The coordinating team kind of brings together the different pieces of state government,” Murphy said. “The Recovery Act money is spread out over a number of different funding streams, so we try to coordinate all the activities of the stimulus. We will also are the central reporting site for state government to the federal government, which is a pretty extensive organizational process. We have to get the entire state government to report as a single entity to the federal government. That’s an organizational feat.”

After 11 years in Washington, D.C., Murphy moved back to Iowa in June in order to better manage the Recovery Act task force, which is made up of representatives from the Department of Administrative Services, Department of Management and the governor’s office. Together, task force members help to coordinate different parts of state government and assist them in following strict federal standards for accountability and transparency.

“It takes a lot of coordination between state agencies when it comes to reporting how we spend these funds,” Murphy said. “That’s what we’re focused on right now. We’re making sure we’re meeting federal requirements, getting the proper certification and hitting all the marks to receive the funds. Now we’re getting ready for the first reporting period. It’s a constantly shifting landscape of guidance we’re getting from the federal government. We’re trying to make sure departments understand the requirements.”

Money from the federal stimulus is allocated directly from federal agencies to their state counterparts. For example, the U.S. Department of Transportation will provide funding to the Iowa Department of Transportation, which will then hire contractors to perform the desired work.

But, while the money is allocated to individual agencies, data must be collected and reported back to the federal government all together, which is where Murphy and his team come in.

“We’re trying to pull all that information back up to one centralized location so that we can report it accurately to the federal government,” he said. “It’s a complicated system, but it’s necessary to capture the data the federal government wants.”

Decisions on how the money is spent are left to the individual agencies, Murphy said. His team’s role is simply “keeping trains running on time, sharing information between agencies and making sure deadlines are hit.”

“It’s a big responsibility,” he said.

A return to Iowa

An Iowa native, Murphy lived in Washington, D.C., for more than a decade. He worked in U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell’s congressional office for two years, and then joined Iowa State University’s lobbying effort in the nation’s capital.

“Just like most top research universities, Iowa State has a D.C. office,” he said. “I was the director of federal relations for them for six and a half years.”

Murphy was tapped in March 2007 by Culver to lead the Iowa Office of State-Federal Relations, a two-person office that works to ensure the state has a say in how legislation is drafted, as well as how different legislation may impact the Hawkeye State. When Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Murphy quickly realized it would monopolize a large portion of his job, prompting his return to Iowa in June.

“A lot of what the relationship between state and federal government right now revolves around the Recovery Act,” he said. “So a majority of my time is going to that.”

His main focus currently is an Oct. 10 deadline for reporting to the federal government how Iowa has spent the stimulus money it has received thus far. Murphy said every level of state government would learn a lot from this first official reporting period.

“This is basically uncharted territory,” Murphy said. “This is an entire new level of transparency and accountability standards. There are going to be problems, but we’re doing everything we can to make sure we are keeping all problems to a minimum.”

So far, Murphy said he is proud of the work that has been done by his team and all levels of state government.

“I think Iowa has hit every mark in terms of implementing the recovery act, and I think we’ve done it as well if not better than any other state,” he said. “We’ve created this reporting system using existing state resources, in house, and the system is as good if not better than any system around the country.”

Maximizing federal dollars

So far, money for transportation projects has been the easiest to spend quickly. Murphy said that is because there were already a huge number of projects lined up that needed funding.

“There were shovel-ready projects already in the pipeline, so money could go out pretty easily,” he said. “That also clears the path for other projects down the road that may not have gotten funding. Those projects are now back on the table.”

Another area where federal money has been spent quickly is unemployment insurance and Medicaid. Economic downturns create a greater need for these types of programs, Murphy said, and the additional funds ensured state government wouldn’t’ have to reduce services or cut provider rates in order to fund the increased demand.

The state has also allocated $202 million for K-12 education, Murphy said, which will be sent to school districts in monthly installments throughout the school year.

“How they spend that money is left to the discretion of the school districts,” he said.

The state’s energy program also got a boost from federal stimulus dollars. The Office of Energy Independence has stopped accepting applications for funding and will begin handing out financial awards once they are able to sort through the more than 200 applications they received, Murphy said.

“We’re getting the money out as quickly as possible,” he said.

State agencies and local government’s are also being encouraged to go after any competitive grants that they are eligible for, Murphy said.

“We’ve estimated that our total Recovery Act Funds we expect to receive is roughly $2.49 billion,” he said. “The reason that’s an estimate is because there are things like competitive grants departments are going after, so we may get a more, we may get a little less. We’re trying to get as many federal dollars as we possibly can. We are encouraging departments to turn over every stone looking for federal money.”

Don’t call me ‘czar’

Many states have established one point person to oversee federal stimulus spending, a so-called “Stimulus Czar.” Murphy resists that moniker.

“We’ve approached this as a team,” he said. “It’s not my nature to promote myself, that’s for sure. My goal is to get this Recovery Act money implemented as best as possible, and that requires a team effort. This is too comprehensive and requires too many different skill sets for one person to tackle.”

Despite not wanting much of the limelight, Murphy has hit the road in recent months to meet with local officials around the state to ensure all their questions are answered.

“Over the course of the last month or so, I drive out to communities and meet with city managers, mayors, city council members, county supervisors and talked with them about the Recovery Act,” he said. “It’s good to open dialogue. Specifically, I’m focusing on the smaller community in Iowa.”

Those communities may be eligible for federal funds and not know it. Or, they could be receiving federal funds and not be aware of strict accountability standards.

“I want to make sure everyone is on the same page,” Murphy said.

That will ensure the stimulus program does everything it has been advertised to do — help Iowa climb out of a financial recession.

“The Recovery Act, and Gov. Culver’s I-JOBS program, is a bridge to a more stable economic situation,” Murphy said. “An economic situation where we can actually grow our economy and meet future needs.”

As for the success of the program, Murphy said less than a year ago the economy was teetering on the brink of disaster.

“Now, we’re talking about an economy that is beginning to stabilize,” he said. “And it hasn’t really been that long.”

And with each passing deadline and every dollar spent, Murphy said the entire state government apparatus is improving the process.

“We anticipate some hiccups in the system, but the philosophy is to constantly improve in how we implement it,” he said. “We’re doing it better this week than we did last week. We’ll do it better next week better than this week. We’re constantly learning and improving how we do things.”

Gov. Chet Culver

“Some economists are arguing that we do need another round [of stimulus] because the challenge is so great,” Culver said in an interview with the Iowa Independent. “Ultimately, whether the country needs another stimulus or not will be a decision the president and Congress have to make. Iowa is well-positioned to emerge from this economic downturn in good shape, but other states are not so lucky.”

Culver pointed to his $830 million I-JOBS infrastructure plan as his response to a difficult economic situation, saying if the General Assembly had failed to pass his signature piece of legislation then the need for another round of federal aide would much larger.

“That’s why I-JOBS was so important,” he said. “We knew we couldn’t rely indefinitely on the federal government to get our economy going again. If we hadn’t passed that, we might have needed another stimulus.”

In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday, President Barack Obama defended his $787 billion stimulus plan and asked Americans for patience.

“[The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] was, from the start, a two-year program, and it will steadily save and create jobs as it ramps up over this summer and fall,” Obama wrote. “We must let it work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.”

Culver called the original round of stimulus money a “life saver” during a difficult budget year.

“We really appreciate [President Obama’s] leadership,” he said. “The stimulus made all the difference in the world in terms of health care for kids, funding for education and making sure we didn’t have deeper lay offs. And we have $150 million left for next year.”

Iowa has the eighth-fastest growing economy in the U.S., Culver said, and that is due in large part to the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on infrastructure, thanks to the stimulus funds and I-JOBS. The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently gave Iowa high marks for the way it is handling its share of federal stimulus dollars.

“It’s creating economic opportunity when our state needs it,” Culver said. “We have an opportunity to modernize our state’s infrastructure.”

Whether or not a second round of federal money will be needed is something that will be decided in Washington, D.C., and influenced by states in much worse shape than Iowa, Culver said.

“I think other states are pushing harder for another stimulus, states like California, New York and Michigan who are in a really tough place,” he said. “The president is going to have to weigh all of that. I feel really bad for other states that are in the middle of a crisis. I feel bad for my colleagues around the country who are in a really tough position right now.”

While there are tough budget decisions left to make in the coming legislative session, Culver said Iowa is well positioned to avoid major cuts.

Of the money allocated, all of it comes from the portion directed towards highway infrastructure projects. Iowa is set to receive $358 million and has already obligated $226.6 million, a little more than 63 percent.

“Obligated” funds are projects that have been given federal authority to go forward.

There are 155 projects out to bid, 59 projects currently under contract and 20 projects already underway, the report said.

The committee report also found 698 “direct, on-project jobs created or sustained,” with a total payroll of job hours of more than $800,000.

Vaudt has joined a group of conservatives around the country who say their states should decline some of the federal money, including Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. Vaudt didn’t cite specific programs or dollar amounts, but he did say a short-term gain should not be allowed to create a huge bureaucracy down the road.

“I would sort through each piece of the stimulus package and try and say ‘where does it fit Iowa the most,’” [Vaudt] said.

Even if governors turn down money, the economic recovery law includes a provision allowing state legislatures to override governors.

Vaudt has said publicly that he is considering a run for governor in 2010. While his conservative bonafides on economic policy have been well documented, his views on social issues are less well known. Vaudt told Burns that he has “standard” conservative positions on social issues, including being anti-abortion. But he would make exceptions for rape and when the life of the mother is in jeopardy.