ABC News: Jobs Saved or Created in Congressional Districts That Don’t Exist

Human Error Blamed for Crediting New Stimulus Jobs to Places That Don’t Exist

by JONATHAN KARL and ZACH WOLF
ABC News
Nov. 16, 2009

Here’s a stimulus success story: In Arizona’s 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that’s what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

There’s one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.

And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.

Late Monday, officials with the Recovery Board created to track the stimulus spending, said the mistakes in crediting nonexistent congressional districts were caused by human error. Ed Pound, Communications Director for the Recovery Board said “We report what the recipients submit to us,” he said of what the Recovery Board puts on the Web site. “Some recipients clearly don’t know what congressional district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number,” he said. “We expected all along that recipients would make mistakes on their congressional districts, on jobs numbers, on award amounts, and so. Human beings make mistakes.”

The issue has raised hackles on Capitol Hill.

The article continues at ABC News.

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