Shovels Ready? At Ease!

We can't get at the precise final language of the House and Senate compromise on the stimilus package, but while there is lots of money in it - in various places - for higher education, the dollars intended for "shovel ready" renovation and upgrading projects seems to have turned into something like a handful of snowflakes in July: Some general dollars given to state governors to do with as they wish, without a restriction saying that they can't use them for upgrading facilities. One anonymous SCUPer writes to us:

Amazing as it is that the President, House of Representatives and a majority (albeit a simple majority) in the Senate wanted to fund nearly $16 billion for school construction, this stimulus opportunity was collapsed into the state stabilization funding *an increase of $6.6 billion in lieu of K12 funding and an increase of $3.4 billion to states in lieu of the higher ed facility funding. But the school districts will have to fight with the states over whether or not it gets spent on school construction, because there is no mandate to spend it in this way.

Few of the SCUPers we have spoken with today believe that much of those dollars will do anything but help governors do a slightly better job of balancing their budgets. Whether any of the dollars end up in facilities renovation depends pretty much on whatever system is currently in place within each state, and many governors have already shown their readiness to cut off building projects to move dollars elsewhere.

As one SCUPer commented this morning, "There's something in there (or not) to make just about anyone angry."