Las Vegas NowReport: State Benefits from Stimulus Money

Report: State Benefits from Stimulus Money

The state of Nevada's tracking of federal stimulus money is being released for the first time.

So far, about 1,000 new jobs have been created. The money is also keeping some current employees at their positions throughout Nevada schools. Retention of employees in education makes up for a large portion of jobs through stimulus spending.

$2.2 billion was awarded to Nevada and not all of it has been used.

Stacks and stacks of papers is how Charles Harvey, director of Nevada's stimulus money, keeps track of the funds. "Approximately 5,080 jobs were created or retained," he said.

More than 3,000 of those jobs belong to people who would have likely been laid off without the stimulus money. "The bulk of the jobs were retained as a result of the state fiscal stabilization funds in education. Those are teachers that would have been let go had we not received those funds," he said.

"The worst job as a building administrator is having to tell them they can no longer work at your building. People get very connected to these jobs and want to be at the schools they are at because they have a sense of pride for the school they work for," Clark High School Principal said Jill Pendleton.

Pendleton says students on her campus have benefited because of stimulus money. Some of the money is also being used to incorporate more parental involvement. "We're providing after school tutoring, online credit recovery with the money. We'll be providing free summer school for our students this summer. We have a lot of areas where we utilized these funds," she said.

From education to construction, Nevada's share of the stimulus money has also helped the Laborers Local 872 put some union members to work by creating new jobs through a new weatherization program. "The funds are just rolling out. We got three people just starting out. We have three different contractors who will be doing this work," said Steven Koch with the union.

Kock says three may not sound like a lot, but for those in construction, it's three fewer brothers or sisters who are struggling.