Senator Gillibrand Releases Economic Recovery Guide Book for New York Community Leaders and Organizations

Press Release

Senator Gillibrand Releases Economic Recovery Guide Book for New York Community Leaders and Organizations

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today is releasing A Guide to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for New York community leaders and organizations. The book, compiled by Senator Gillibrand's office, offers the most up-to-date details on how communities and organizations can access federal stimulus funding.

The guide is part of Senator Gillibrand's efforts to create jobs and ensure New York gets its fair share of federal dollars. Currently, New York only receives 79 cents back from the Treasury for every tax dollar sent to Washington, D.C. One of the ways to bring this money back and create jobs is to help New York communities, organizations, and businesses secure federal funding from the stimulus legislation.

In a letter accompanying the guide book, Senator Gillibrand explained, "As I travel across New York and meet with community leaders such as you, one thing is clear - information about how funds will be dispersed under the Recovery Plan has been difficult to access and decipher. As your Senator, I am working to provide you with as much information as possible to put your community in a position to compete for these funds."

This guide book is the first step in an ongoing effort to secure federal investments for New York. During her time in Congress, Senator Gillibrand has focused on helping local communities and organizations access federal dollars. By providing full transparency to the appropriation process and holding grant workshops for local communities, businesses and other organizations, Senator Gillibrand will continue working with New Yorkers to secure federal dollars.

Experts estimate that the recovery package will save or create 215,000 new jobs in New York in the areas of construction, technology, and energy production. The Recovery Act will invest $27.5 billion to improve the nation's roads and bridges - nearly $1.1 billion of which will go to New York State. In total, the recovery plan includes over $60 billion for modernizing traditional infrastructure such as sewers and drinking water projects, in addition to roads, bridges and airports. The plan goes further, by providing almost $160 billion for non-traditional infrastructure, such as health care information technology and renewable sources of energy, which is critical to New York's long-term economic development.

"Finding the resources that meet your needs in this complex web of agencies can be an impossible task. For this reason, I have created this guidebook to serve as a starting point in providing information about what resources are available to individuals, businesses, community organizations and local governments. Its contents are by no means comprehensive and will be updated periodically as more details about specific programs become available," Senator Gillibrand wrote.

The guidebook is comprised of 11 different sections providing information about what programs will be receiving recovery funds. Each section is sub-divided into what programs New York State will administer and what programs the respective federal agencies will administer. In many cases, the Recovery Act provides for a federal cost share of 100 percent, meaning local entities will not have to match federal funding provided in the Recovery Act.

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