That was fast.
Faced with complaints that states didn’t have the resources to properly track federal stimulus dollars, the feds have released more funds for states to hire accountants and auditors and set up offices and websites.
According to the AP, Colorado will likely receive $7 billion in stimulus money and can now use some of that to properly track stimulus spending and projects.
“We are glad that the federal government has responded to our concerns and clarified a way to plan and budget for our costs to appropriately track the Recovery Act funds,” Myung Oak Kim, communications manager for Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter’s economic recovery team, told the AP.
Threatened with losing stimulus money for not spending it fast enough and not tracking it sufficiently, Colorado officials told the Wisconsin State Journal two weeks ago that they had no money even for a website or a publicist. A spokesperson for Gov. Ritter then said the governor’s office had no handle on the costs of allocating stimulus money and suggested the state may be incurring debt in simply attempting to spend it.
