| | Looking for a job? Recovery.gov allows you to search for employment opportunities with recipients of stimulus funds. Though the database is not exhaustive, it also includes some non-Recovery job information. Other sites that are helpful in finding Recovery-related jobs include:
Posted: 2/8/2010 4:03:14 PM
- Economic and Workforce Development
- Resources |
| | Illinois released its January 10, 2010 stimulus report overview. The job numbers -- which are now being reported quarterly -- reflect all positions paid for by ARRA money between October 1 and December 31, 2009. (For more on new reporting requirements, check out our last newsletter.) The stimulus funded nearly 6,700 jobs in Illinois during the past quarter. Other highlights include: - Illinois lost jobs at a slower rate as the year progressed.
- Of 18,777 direct jobs attributed to the stimulus as of September 30, 2009, most had been retained as of December 31.
- The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) awarded or obligated stimulus funds for 1,011 miles of road repair and 62 bridge repairs or replacements.
- The Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) has signed agreements that will create 754 new and rehabilitated housing units across the state.
Posted: 2/2/2010 10:04:07 AM
- Economic and Workforce Development
- General
- Housing
- Resources |
| | Guidelines for the Illinois Energy Star Appliance Rebate Program, funded with $12.4 million in stimulus funds, have been announced. The program, which provides incentives for individuals to replace older appliances with specific residential Energy Star qualified appliances, water heaters, and HVAC equipment, is being rolled out in two phases. As of January 31, 2010, consumers can receive “point of purchase” rebates on certain heating and cooling equipment and water heaters. “Point of purchase” rebates on Energy Star qualified clothes washers, dishwasher, refrigerators, freezers, and room air conditioners will be available during April 16 - 25, 2010. For more information, visit this site or call 877-782-7005.
Posted: 2/8/2010 10:18:47 AM
- Energy and Brownfields |
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Illinois will get $1.23 billion in stimulus dollars through the High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program, according to today’s announcement by the White House and the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). See a description of the Illinois project (with details of a separate $31 million grant to Missouri for connecting St. Louis with Kansas City), along with a national map and fact sheets describing other funded projects.
The grant to Illinois will cut travel time between Chicago and St. Louis by almost 25 percent and eliminate a bottleneck for Metra, Amtrak, and freight railroads on the South Side of Chicago. The State of Illinois had applied for $4.5 billion of the $8 billion available for this round of stimulus funding. Illinois has already committed $400 million for high-speed rail, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Other Midwest grants announced today include $823 million to Wisconsin for the Minneapolis-Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago corridor and $244 million to Michigan for the Detroit-Chicago corridor. Nationally, the largest grant goes to California, which will receive $2.34 billion to construct a new, electrically-powered high-speed rail system from San Francisco and Sacramento to Los Angeles and San Diego.
Read more about funding for high-speed rail at Crain’s Chicago Business.
Posted: 2/1/2010 5:07:17 PM
- Transportation |
| | The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced over $2 billion in Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 (NSP2) awards on January 14, 2010; over $160 million will be coming to Illinois. Local winners included the City of Chicago ($98 million), City of Evanston ($18.2 million), Chicanos Por La Causa ($13.5 million), Center for Community Self-Help ($3.3 million) and The Community Builders, Inc. ($8,6 million). CMAP and its partners in the Chicago Metropolitan Neighborhood Stabilization Program Consortium (CMNSPC) worked very hard to submit a strong proposal that was not funded, which is especially disappointing in light of the HUD solicitation’s language encouraging regional cooperation. That proposal seemed to hit all the right notes and was based on real and extensive collaborations, which continue despite this setback. The following links provide program-specific information for awardees of NSP2:
Posted: 1/20/2010 3:14:21 PM
- Housing |
| | Busy with the holidays in December? You may have missed two major stimulus-related developments for the region and state. Illinois Economic Recovery Plan On December 14, 2009, Governor Pat Quinn announced a new job creation and retention plan, “Illinois Economic Recovery Plan: Jobs for Today and Tomorrow.” A major part of the Economic Recovery Plan is Illinois Jobs Now!, the state’s first major capital construction program in over a decade. The program is designed to create/support 439,000 jobs over six years. The Illinois unemployment rate for November 2009 was slightly higher than the 10 percent national average for the same month. The Economic Recovery Plan’s components include making a variety of investments to: - Help bring new businesses to Illinois and expand those already here.
- Renovate and repair state infrastructure, like roads and bridges, while expanding the broadband network and providing affordable housing and clean, reliable water supplies.
- Create and maintain an educated and trained workforce, with special programs for employing veterans and expanding the green jobs workforce.
- Find and fund innovation by increasing access to capital and financing new energy and smart grid projects.
- Promote Illinois as a global economic player through commerce and tourism.
- Building a green economy. Stimulus funds are greatly aiding this aspect of the plan through Weatherization and Energy Efficiency Block Grant programs.
Read the full plan here. 
Green jobs in Chicago The City of Chicago will use $7.425 million in stimulus funds over the next two years to “create nearly 300 community-based green jobs for the hard-to-employ, including the formerly incarcerated,” according to this news release. The stimulus money, part of the Community Development Block Grant program through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), will support the Green Job Work Experience and Community Green Jobs. The programs were developed by the city with both non-profit and for-profit partners and will be delegated to 11 agencies to facilitate.
Posted: 1/12/2010 4:08:54 PM
- Economic and Workforce Development
- Energy and Brownfields
- Housing
- Telecommunications
- Transportation |
| | New GAO report The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report evaluating the stimulus, “Planned Efforts and Challenges in Evaluating Compliance with Maintenance of Effort and Similar Provisions.” The report evaluated eight stimulus programs that contain maintenance of effort or similar provisions that require recipients “maintain certain levels of spending for selected programs… to ensure that the increased federal spending will supplement rather than replace state, local, or private spending,” according to the report. Problems that still need to be addressed for maintenance of effort and similar provisions to be successful are detailed in the full report. Many federal and state officials have yet to complete key steps in the implementation of these provisions, according to the GAO. Year end review, new map feature from Illinois Economic indicators for the year were posted on Illinois’ Recovery site. One major highlight is that Illinois lost fewer jobs, at a slower rate, as the year progressed. As of December 31, 2009, the state expended approximately $1.55 billion in stimulus funding, which is 34 percent of the total amount awarded to Illinois. The state also updated its interactive map, which now includes pinpoint mapping of all the stimulus projects in Illinois for the overall stimulus and by category (education, health and human services, etc.).
Posted: 1/7/2010 4:55:12 PM
- General
- Resources |
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