How the Stimulus Helps Oklahoma City

By Alex Cameron, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma City is getting close to $45 million in federal stimulus money, and will spend about a third of that on making road improvements. Officials with the City Manager's office outlined the breakdown of the funds and their anticipated uses at Tuesday morning's City Council meeting.

Some of the funds are being administered through the state, while others will come directly to the city through formula and competitive grants. The city's Public Works Department will receive $15.2 million and be used to pay for transportation infrastructure projects and primarily street repaving.

Dennis Clowers, the Director of the Public Works Department, says the money is significant in that it will allow for the repaving of 40 miles of city streets that otherwise could not have been done, at least not now.

Stimulus Watch: Follow the Money

He says this will help stimulate the local economy, in that it will provide needed work to contractors and their workers. He says the contracts should be let know sometime this summer.

The city's public transportation agency is slated to get $10 million in stimulus money , with close to half of that earmarked for the purchase of new buses.

"Most of that is going to be used to purchase buses," said Jane Abraham, manager of the Oklahoma City Government Affairs. "Much of our fleet is in dire need of replacement."

Other funds will go to projects like the rehabilitation of runway lighting at both Will Rogers World Airport and Wiley Post Airport ($2.9 million), expansion of the police department's Justice Assistance Grant program ($2.1 million) and homeless prevention efforts ($2 million).

"We're going to use a lot of the money for overtime to put officers in areas where we feel like our violent crime is the highest," said Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty.

City officials say citizens will be able to follow the expenditure of all these funds on a special page being created on the city's Web site.