ShovelWatch, a joint ProPublica–WNYC Radio project tracking the stimulus package, offers this searchable database of U.S. school districts to give its readers a sense of how the changes in the federal stimulus bill as it has worked its way from the president through the House to the Senate and to a joint committee that announced it had reached a $789 billion compromise plan.
Here is a tentative breakdown from districts covered by Packet Group papers. The money listed was included in the bill that passed the House, but was cut from the Senate bill. Some of it apparently has been returned, but it is still unclear how much and which schools will benefit.
- Princeton Regional — $145,600
- West Windsor-Plainsboro — $182,800
- Montgomery (Belle Mead) — $0
- Cranbury — $19,200
- Jamesburg — $100,500
- Monroe — $609,800
- South Brunswick — $247,400
- Upper Freehold Regional — $39,700
- Robbinsville — $298,700
- Hightstown-East Windsor Regional — $401,800
- Lambertville — $8,300
- Lawrence — $309,900
- Hillsborough — $327,200
- Manville — $154,900
- North Burlington Regional — $58,700
- Florence — $174,000
- Mansfield — $71,600
- New Hanover — $44,700
- North Hanover — $124,000
- Springfield — $10,200
- Hopewell Valley Regional — $61,700
Several of these districts — Monroe, Robbinsville (which is still listed as Washington), Mansfield — share names with districts elsewhere in the state, and the way the data is presented makes it difficult to know which district is which. The numbers represent my best guess at the moment, and I plan to revise this as I get better numbers.
Suffice to say that this is a lose-lose for the region: The schools won’t get the money to modernize, which means that they will not be creating construction work, which means that the workers won’t have money in their pockets to spend at local stores and so on. But, hey, we’ve cut the stimulus — which most economists have said was too small — down to a politically manageable size. Good work (he said sarcastically).
Hank Kalet 