Some Stimulus Spending Details

Today's Concord Monitor offers some details on the distribution and use of almost $21 million in federal stimulus funds.

The funding will impact a litany of state and private entities throughout the Granite State, though the focus of much of the Monitor's piece was on Concord specific awards. Here are some of the details:

• "The [Concord] police department received $207,000 to hire a new officer for three years - the city had to agree to pay for the position for one year after that[.]"
  
  
• "[T]he department was awarded more than $180,000 ... about $125,000 of which has been used to retain two officers, ... the rest to buy two police cruisers later this year."
  
  
• "[T]he Belknap-Merrimack Community Action Program has [received] ... more than $3.6 million for weatherization projects."
  
  
• "The [Concord school] district will get nearly $1.3 million more this year in money for disadvantaged students."
  
  
• "[T]he state's community colleges have been awarded money mostly for financial aid. ... NHTI in Concord will get more than $825,000 in awards related to federal Pell grants [and] $17,000 toward a federal work-study program."

What do you think? Good uses of taxpayer cash or simply redistribution minus the federal government's cut?