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RACE TO THE TOP
$4.35 billion for education will bypass Oregon, at least for now By Sheila G. Miller The Bulletin
Oregon schools have been shut out of the first round of $4.35 billion in federal competitive grants designed to reward states willing to make innovations to improve student achievement. The U.S. Department of Education ann o u n c e d Still the in the race Thursday 16 finalists for The 16 finalists $4.35 billion in for the Race to Race to the Top the Top federal grants, and the education funding list is heavy are: on East Coast • Colorado and Southern states. The • Delaware only Western • District of state on the list Columbia is Colorado. • Florida V i c k i e • Georgia Fleming, who • Illinois chaired the Oregon Race to • Kentucky the Top design • Louisiana team, believes • Massachusetts the state’s ap• New York plication was • North Carolina stymied by the state’s lack • Ohio of legislation • Pennsylvania pushing edu• Rhode Island cation reform • South Carolina and by a lack • Tennessee of commitment from teachers unions; the list of finalists is heavy on right-to-work states, where employees can decide for themselves whether to join a union, and on states where legislators have supported charter school laws and teacher incentive pay. The funds are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and states had to apply for the grants. The federal government was looking for state proposals that showed a willingness to implement new and radical changes to public schools in order to improve student learning. See Race / A5
TOP NEWS INSIDE IRAQ: Bombers strike as polls open in prelude to pivotal election, Page A3
Weatherization: A local nonprofit got $1.48 million to work on low-income homes, but only 12 of 228 have been finished
Little work so far from stimulus grant
Deschutes could be $1 million richer than it thought Money might be used to help local businesses, attract more companies By Hillary Borrud The Bulletin
Ryan Brennecke / The Bulletin
Brandon Shoote, an employee of Richart Family Inc., pumps insulation under the floor of a mobile home that is being weatherized as part of a stimulus-funded weatherization program run by NeighborImpact. Richart Family Inc. bought about $500,000 in equipment last fall after being awarded the stimulus contract, but then had to wait for the funding to come through, according to Mike Richart, a co-owner of the company. Now that work has begun, though, the Vancouver, Wash., business has hired four new people for its Redmond office.
NeighborImpact says federal wage rules are to blame for delay, and it’s not alone By Kate Ramsayer The Bulletin
Almost a year after NeighborImpact found out it would be awarded $1.48 million of stimulus funds to weatherize 228 low-income homes, only 12 homes have been finished. As of earlier this week, the Redmond nonprofit has spent about $87,000 on those dozen projects, according to Corky Senecal, director of housing and emergency services with NeighborImpact. The weatherization work is mostly
split between two contractors, one of whom said he hired more employees and bought new equipment in the fall, only to wait for the jobs — and the funding — to come through. Senecal and officials with the state say the delays are due to a slow federal process. Work on low-income houses didn’t get started until December, Senecal said, because NeighborImpact had to wait until the federal Department of Labor set prevailing wages for the weatherization
workers under the Davis-Bacon Act — a requirement for stimulus funding that wasn’t needed for previous weatherization projects. “We all had to wait until we got the Davis-Bacon wage parity numbers,” Senecal said. “It wasn’t that the money wasn’t available. There were some new pieces to this funding that we needed to get implemented.” The slow start to weatherization stimulus efforts also occurred across Oregon and the country — a U.S. Department of Energy report released in late February found that less than 8 percent of the $4.7 billion awarded nationally had been used for improvements to low-income homes. See Weatherize / A4
More jobs: U.S. House passes tax breaks for new hires, Page A3
Deschutes County could end up with an extra $1 million in general fund revenue by June, thanks to unexpected income related to foreclosures. Now, county officials are touting an idea to use the windfall to revitalize a loan fund to help local businesses and lure more companies to the area. Banks pay the Deschutes County Clerk’s Office to record documents leading up to foreclosures, then pay off delinquent tax bills when they take possession of properties. As the economy tanked and foreclosures rose, the county has received more of this money than anticipated. Commissioners announced the loan fund idea at a county forecast hosted by the Bend Chamber of Commerce on Thursday morning, and they continued to discuss it at a state Economic Revitalization Team meeting later in the day. The county created its revolving business loan fund in the 1980s, and loans are aimed at helping businesses create jobs. “Because this money comes to us as a result of the down economy, it would be appropriate to use it in a way that revives the economy,” said County Administrator Dave Kanner, who thought up the concept. At the same time, Kanner emphasized Thursday that it is just an idea and needs to be developed. The amount of money the county could put in the loan fund has yet to be determined, but Kanner said delinquent taxes collected by the end of February were already about $260,000 more than budgeted. If the rate of payment on these taxes stays steady, the county could have about $680,000 more than it expected by the end of the budget year in June. The Clerk’s Office is on track to be about $435,000 over budget by that time. Kanner said the county would not likely use all of these surpluses for the loan fund. The county created the loan fund with money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, during another period when the economy was “really, really bad,” said Susan Ross, who oversaw the fund for years and is now the director of Deschutes County’s Property and Facilities Department. See Forecast / A4
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Vol. 107, No. 64, 64 pages, 7 sections
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For Democrats, ethics shoe may be on other foot
Fleeing Haitian chaos for a refuge ... in Chile
By Jeff Zeleny
The Associated Press
New York Times News Service
The ethical woes facing Democrats are piling up, with barely a day passing in recent weeks without headlines filled with word of scandal or allegations of wrongdoing. The troubles of Gov. David Paterson of New York, followed by those of two of the state’s members of Congress, Reps. Charles Rangel and Eric Massa, have added to the ranks of episodes involving prominent Democrats like Eliot Spitzer, Rod Blagojev-
By Nicole Winfield
Inside • Ways and Means Committee has a new leader, Page A4 ich and John Edwards. Taken together, the cases have opened the party to the same lines of criticism that Democrats, led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, now the House speaker, and Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, used against Republicans four years ago. See Ethics / A4
Jorge Sanchez / The Associated Press
Jinette Pierre, right, and the Desarmes family left Haiti two weeks after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, joining the eldest son in Chile, which was rocked by a large quake Saturday.
SAN BERNARDO, Chile — The Desarmes family left its native Haiti two weeks after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, joining the eldest son in Chile for what seemed a refuge from the fear and chaos of Port-au-Prince. The family’s sense of security lasted barely a month. It was shattered at 3:43 a.m. Saturday when one of the most powerful quakes on record shook a swath of Chile. All the Desarmes’ immediate family survived both quakes.
But twice cursed, the family now sleeps in the garden of a home that the eldest son, Pierre Desarmes, found just south of the Chilean capital of Santiago. The family fears yet another temblor will strike. “I left my country and came here because of an earthquake,” Seraphin Philomene, a 21-yearold student and cousin of Desarmes, said Wednesday. “And here, the same thing!” “My God, I left my country and I didn’t die, but I’m going to die here!” See Family / A5