Steve Kass

If you squint, you’ll see my name in tiny print under Itzik’s. He wrote most of the book, but I contributed two chapters and did most of the technical review. Click on the image to visit the book’s Barnes and Noble page.

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As part of the 2009 federal stimulus package, over $2,600,000,000 in formula grants is available to U.S. municipalities under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program (link). That’s a little over $8.50 per person on average.

How much will your city get? It depends on your city’s population. To be exact, it depends on the weighted average of your city’s resident (weight 0.7) and daytime (weight 0.3) populations. Oh, and it also depends—in a big way—on whether your city is an eligible unit of local government—alternative 1, an eligible unit of local government—alternative 2, neither, or both. Yes, both, even though these terms are called alternatives.

Each eligible unit of local government—alternative 1 gets an allocation of about $4.00 per person.

Each eligible unit of local government—alternative 2 gets an allocation of about $6.00 per person.

The cool thing (cool if you live in an eligible unit of local government—alternative 2) is that every eligible unit of local government—alternative 2 is also an eligible unit of local government—alternative 1, so eligible unit of local government—alternative 2s get both allocations. Ka-ching—$10.00 per person!

So how do you get to be an eligible unit of local government—alternative 2? All you need is 50,000 people (if you’re a city) or 200,000 people (if you’re a county). If you’re a city, but only have 35,000 people or more, or have a population that “causes the city to be 1 of the 10 highest populated cities of the State in which the city is located” (that’s an exact quote), you only qualify to be an eligible unit of local government—alternative 1. (Smaller municipalities in smaller counties not in their state’s top 10 will get some funds from other sources, I’m told.)

Confused? Here’s an example: Palm Desert, California (population 50,907) is an eligible unit of local government—alternative 2 and also an eligible unit of local government—alternative 1. It gets both allocations, for a total of $529,000. Its neighbor a few miles to the northwest, Palm Springs (population 47,251) is only an eligible unit of local government—alternative 1, so it only gets one of the allocations, and the smaller one at that, for a total of $225,600. Sorry, Palm Springs. Just a few thousand more people and you would have gotten an extra $300,000 in EECBG stimulus money.

Where did the strange definitions come from? The 2009 stimulus bill allocation formula got the terms it bases its allocations on from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The bottom line is that cities with populations between 35,000 and 50,000 slipped through the cracks. Or someone pushed them through. If you know how this situation came about, I’d love to hear from you.

Sources:
Wikipedia article on the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (link)
California City and County Population Estimates (link to Excel file):