TILT! The Obama Stimulus jobs report errors are astounding

Posted by Clyde Middleton on Nov 4 2009 Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

In just one slice of the pathetic claim of “640,000 is like a million jobs S&C’d!” we learn that there is nothing but air, and sometimes quite expensive air.

Check out these specifics, all from the data compiled and submitted by the Illinois State Board of Education:

In the official report, Wilmette Public Schools District 39 was credited with 166 jobs saved by stimulus aid. Superintendent Raymond Lechner said the number should be zero.

At Dolton-Riverdale School District 148, stimulus funds were said to have saved the equivalent of 382 full-time teaching jobs — 142 more than the district actually has.

A similar discrepancy was found in data for Kankakee School District 111, where the stimulus report logged the equivalent of 665 full-time jobs saved. “That’s impossible,” a top Kankakee school official said, adding that the entire payroll — full and part time — is 600 workers.

That’s 166+382+665 = 1,213 jobs S&C’d claimed in the report. 166 should be zero. At least 142 too much at D-R. And at least (estimating – note the claim is FTEs) 165 too much at Kank.

So 1,213 is reduced by at least 473 to 740. That’s a 39% MOE – presuming, of course, that if the stimulus money did not come then the school districts would have closed. Something closer to the truth is more likely a 90% MOE.

Can it really be that bad? Let’s allow a district to explain itself:

Last spring, Dolton-Riverdale received $3.6 million in stimulus money and reported to the state that the money saved 181 teaching jobs. A follow-up report this fall on another installment of $750,000 brought the total to 201. The official state report states that stimulus money saved 382 jobs.

But Carolyn Keith, the district’s comptroller, said the data from the two reports overlap and should not be added together.

Ah, got it! So the 382 was simply two numbers added together that should not have been! Let’s do quick check of the evidence:

1. The district employs 240 people
2. They got $3.6 million and saved 181 of them at a cost per job of roughly $19,900
3. Then they received $750,000 and saved, um, 20 I think (“brought the total to”) at a cost of $37,500

So, without the stimulus money, the district would have fired 181 / 240 or 75% of its work force. Yeow!

Further, the 20 jobs it saved at a cost of $37,500 each is impressive. The total cost of an employee to a company is a multiple of salary (generally three times) when you consider fringe benefits and all the others costs of employing and housing a person in a company. But let’s presume these are triage times and they can bring someone in for a simply doubling. That leaves $18,750 for salary, and $18,750 for overhead. At 2,080 hours a year, that’s $9 an hour wage. A teacher. At $9 an hour. OK.

Notice, of course, that the $3.6 million saved enough jobs to employ those 181 folks at $4.78 an hour. A teacher.

Their explanation falls short.

But before we hang them, let’s add some more rope:

The totals do not reflect any school jobs saved or created in Chicago, the state’s biggest district and the recipient of at least $293 million in stimulus funds. Chicago schools budget chief Christina Herzog said the district easily saved at least 1,200 jobs because of the stimulus, but didn’t report them as such because of directives from the state board. State officials dispute that.

An under-count? OK, so presume that the 1,200 jobs were added in. How much did those jobs cost? $293,000,000 / 1,200 = $244,167 each. Nice.

So did the money actually go to save or create jobs? Appears not:

It appears the state treasury — not students or school districts — was the prime beneficiary of the education stimulus jackpot in Illinois. In great measure, funds simply were used to replace general aid payments already owed to local districts by the state. That gave Gov. Pat Quinn breathing room in his struggle to rein in a whopping two-year budget deficit of more than $10 billion.

I bristle at the use of the word “jackpot” in this excerpt. My kids will be paying interest on the debt for Lil Blago’s 2009 budget correction.

Let’s see who actually compiled the data that reflected these wonderfully reliable jobs numbers:

Confusion reigns over why the numbers for many districts appear so off. Responsibility for collecting data and sending the figures to Washington fell to Quinn’s office, which turned the task over to the state board.

Board spokesman Matt Vanover said the data might be flawed and said the information was only as good as the numbers sent in by local districts. But officials of several districts contacted by the Tribune insisted they never provided the state with the jobs numbers used in the official tabulation.

Looks like a circular firing squad. I thought they only did those things in Iran and Yemen where the gene pool dries in the hot summer nights yet they copulate unsafely regardless. Yak and camel smell remarkably similar, did you know that? I guess I could have guessed it, but I hadn’t really thought about it.

If these data reflect the quality behind “640,000 jobs saved or created” which magically becomes a million through Bidenesque extrapolation, we need a recount.

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Related Posts

1. ABC News: Jobs ‘Saved or Created’ in Congressional Districts That Don’t Exist
2. Report: Democratic districts received nearly twice the amount of stimulus funds as GOP districts
3. Here we go again: Obama saved or created 2M jobs
4. White House dumps phony ‘Saved or Created’ method for phony ‘Stimulus-funded’ method
5. Administration sticking with its B.S. numbers on stimulus jobs

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