President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (often referred to as ARRA or the Recovery Act) into law on February 17, 2009. The Act provides $787 billion of federal tax reductions and federal spending increases to accelerate the nation’s economic recovery and to preserve and create jobs.

The timing of application and acceptance processes for Federal grants can vary widely. State agencies are still awaiting award notifications for some awards and are still in the application process for others. As a courtesy to the citizens of Utah, this site only reports funding officially awarded to State agencies, and thus certain numbers reported on this site will change as awards are received.

Specific award processes vary widely across Federal agencies and departments. However, the general pattern is fairly consistent:

(1) The Federal agency or department announces the availability of a Recovery Act grant. Some grant awards are driven by formulas and some are competitive in nature. Regardless of the the nature of the award, an application is almost always required.

(2) Following the announcement of the grant, the application process begins. This process can take anywhere from several weeks to several months, depending on the nature of the grant.

(3) Sometime following the application deadline, Federal Agencies notify the applicants of their award status. In some cases, the award is granted in full. Other grants award funding in phases, each phase depending on the success of the previous phase. Still other applicants are asked to re-submit their applications incorporating certain changes. Lastly, some applicants are denied the award.

(4) The awarding Federal agency or department then requires regular status and progress reports. These reports vary in level of detail and in frequency, depending on the Federal agency and the nature of the program.

As a state agency receives award notification for a Recovery Act grant, it must notify the Governor’s Office. The Governor’s Office then carefully tracks the grant through regular communication with the state agency, and reports important information regarding the grant on this website.

Every entity that receives recovery funds is required to show how those funds are used. The Governor’s Office does not track or collect data from private or local entities regarding awarded or received Recovery Act funding. Information regarding non-state entities within Utah can be found on the Federal recovery website, Recovery.gov.

Most Recovery Act awards are for a period lasting two to five years. Grant expenditures will likely be distributed over the entire award period. State agencies receiving Federal funding are required to minimize the time between a draw of funds from the Federal Agency and the expenditure of those funds. In many cases, this is extended to require that draws from Federal accounts be on a reimbursement basis. Due to these requirements, a State agency receives Recovery Act funding from the Federal Government as program expenses arise and received funding will also likely be distributed over the time period of the grant.

Recovery Act funding is awarded to the State of Utah through various Federal agencies and departments. Click here for a list of awards made to State agencies, including award amounts and the awarding Federal agency or department.

The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the Recovery Act contains $334 billion in tax relief between now and the close of the 2011 federal fiscal year (September 30, 2011). Individual filers receive a tax reduction of $174 billion; businesses, approximately $90 billion. The Recovery Act also reduces the alternative minimum tax for tax year 2009 at a cost of $70 billion.

Experts estimate Utah will receive approximately $1.6 billion in direct funding to State agencies through the Recovery Act. Funding will also be spent on specific programs identified by Congress. Total funding may change depending on the State’s success in receiving competitive grants. For a breakdown of funding allocation totals, select a link below:

To view a breakdown of funding allocation totals, select a link below:

Funding Notifications by Program (State of Utah)
Investments by State - Tabular View (Project specific)

Before a State agency may apply for Federal funding, the Governor’s Office carefully evaluates the grant requirements for potential unintended consequences and burdens to Utah’s citizens, budget, and government.

Transparent.utah.gov allows the public access to transaction-level expenditure and revenue data for Recovery Act awards made to State agencies. This site provides a map geographically reporting all sub-recipients of awards made to State agencies.

The map loosely depicts Recovery Act awards of State agencies and their sub-recipients geographically by county. Making Utah unique is the innovative reporting system that was developed to enable agencies to directly report actual project awards (rather than estimates) to the public through an interactive map. This new system provides increased reliability and accuracy in reporting, while keeping Utah's citizens continually informed of where their tax dollars are being spent.

Many programs and awards funded by the Recovery Act benefit multiple counties. In an effort to prevent double counting or misleading the public regarding the amount of funds awarded by state agencies, in these cases the map identifies either the county receiving the highest proportion of benefit, or the county housing the program’s headquarters. Thus, the benefit of many programs is understated. The map does not reflect projections or anticipated funding, but actual to-date awards and expenditures updated regularly.

In order to accurately depict the areas benefitting from Recovery Act programs, in-house spending is reported at the State agency location, and disbursements made by State agencies to sub-recipients are reported at the sub-recipient location.

Instances and suspicions of fraud, waste and abuse can be anonymously reported directly to a hotline provided by the State Auditor’s Office.

An economic dashboard is available on this site. For more detailed information regarding Utah’s economy visit the monthly economic summary produced by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget.

The Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, in conjunction with state agencies receiving awards, is responsible for the careful use and accurate reporting of Recovery Act funding awarded to Utah state agencies.

This website reports jobs directly created and saved by projects and activities funded by Recovery Act dollars. In accordance with guidance issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget, jobs are reported as “full-time equivalents” (FTE), calculated as total hours worked in jobs created or retained divided by the number of hours in a full-time schedule for the reporting quarter.

The Department of Workforce Services offers a variety of resources to job seekers, available at jobs.utah.gov. All jobs available within Utah state government are posted at the Department of Workforce Services

Governor Herbert has made up to $8,000,000 in Recovery Act funding available to prospective home buyers through the Home Run 2 program. The program will allow up to 2,000 Utahns to receive $4,000 toward the purchase of a newly constructed home. For more information, or to apply for the grant, visit www.utahhousingcorp.org.

Most grants to individuals are directly managed by the Federal government. Applications for a wide variety of Recovery Act and other grants are available at www.grants.gov, a searchable website including every available Federal grant.

Yes! Utah’s commitment to efficiency and transparency has resulted in the development of an innovative system to accurately collect state-wide information into a central location. The system provides up-to-date figures and project information at an unprecedented level of detail, as well as high-level summaries. As of January 1st, 2012 Utah state agencies have:

• Been awarded: $2,148,126,095
• Total spent: $2,059,580,403
• Created and retained jobs (Feb 17th-Sept 30th 2009): 4,106
• Created and retained jobs (Oct 1st-Dec 31st 2009): 3,448
• Created and retained jobs (Jan 1st-March 31st 2010): 4,382
• Created and retained jobs (April 1st-June 30th 2010): 4,152
• Created and retained jobs (July 1st-Sept 30th 2010): 2,401
• Created and retained jobs (Oct 1st-Dec 31st 2010): 1,869
• Created and retained jobs (Jan 1st-Mar 31st 2011): 4,659
• Created and retained jobs (April 1st-June 30th 2011): 3,674
• Created and retained jobs (July 1st-September 30th 2011): 3,602
• Created and retained jobs (October 1st-December 31st 2011): 1,031