California COPS grants

$1 billion in grants to local governments from the federal stimulus package were announced today. In contrast to the infrastructure money, California raked in a large share of these grants, 21%, and just about every major city in the Valley received a signfiicant sum. Unfortunately for California, this program is only 1/787 of stimulus spending. [For comparison, California is a little over 12% of the population; and in most stimulus spending breakdowns I have seen is slated to receive 10-13% of funds in most programs.]

All the large cities in the Valley received grants, but it is interesting to see which of the smaller cities, suburbs, and counties in the Valley received grants (I am assuming all of them applied). Not much in the the Sacramento area. For example, I noticed most of suburban Sacramento: Sacramento County, Elk Grove, Roseville, etc. did not receive grants. More in the rest of the Valley (although certainly not all). For example, San Joaquin County, Lodi, Clovis, Manteca (although no Tracy, Fresno County).

Here is the list to look for yourself.

This is particularly interesting to me, because I helped two of these departments find the economic data they needed for their application. They both got grants, but I don't think there is any correlation.

Some have argued that this kind of spending is not stimulus, but I would argue that it is. I don't think this grant application process is the most efficient or timely way to distribute the funds, but it's hard for me to complain too much in this case when our region faired well.