Las Vegas NowStimulus Reporting Says Nev. Money Went to Non-Existent Districts

Stimulus Reporting Says Nev. Money Went to Non-Existent Districts

Critics have blasted the stimulus plan for not creating enough new jobs in Nevada. Now those same critics are blasting the reporting of the data.

The website recovery.gov, which tracks stimulus spending, lists four made up Congressional districts in Nevada. It shows those districts got $7.7 million in stimulus money and created 23 jobs.

Officially, the White House says the errors only cover a very small amount of entries. The web site watchdog.org found 440 made up districts across the nation -- four of those were in Nevada.

The reporting for recovery.gov comes from the state level. Democratic State Senator Mike Schneider says the reporting problems don't mean a thing. “They are moving so fast in Washington. They are getting it out. To me, it just looks like a clerical error. You see that all the time,” he said.

A source in the Democratic Party says there were 130,000 reports from states across the nation filed in 10 days of being awarded the stimulus money. Twenty days later the data was posted.

The web site showed Nevada with seven congressional districts in all. According to the site, $6.3 million in stimulus was spent in the 32nd district, apparently creating 12 jobs. The 22nd district got $750,000 that created nine jobs. Finally, the site showed the 9th and 25th congressional districts received more than $635,000 in stimulus money.

“The one thing government needs from the taxpaying public is to trust what is said and then to be able to prove that those promises were kept,” said Carol Vilardo, President of the Nevada Taxpayers Association.

A Democratic source says the $6.3 million did come to Nevada and went to the Washoe County Airport. They say district number was a typo.

Also, the $750,000 is actually a grant from the Department of Energy to New York and the state was a typo. Of the last two, $620,000 went to the Nevada Department of Corrections and the district number was another typo.

The source could not account for the error of the $15,600 award.

As you can imagine, reaction is mixed down party lines. The Democrats brush it off as small, honest errors. A spokesman for Rep. Dina Titus says, "The Administration is undertaking an unprecedented effort to account for spending through the Recovery Act and is committed to a transparent process. It is unfortunate that there have been errors in the process that undermine this effort."

A spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley says, "The mistakes were in calculating the figures and putting them in the database. The Congresswoman is not defending these mistakes, but they should not have happened and need to be corrected."

The Republicans attack it as an attempt to make the stimulus look more effective.