Los Angeles City Comptroller: $111 Million in Stimulus Money Created Less Than 55 Jobs.

Using the Obama Administration's newest metric, there's still no word on how many 'lives touched' by the stimulus money in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles City Controller said on Thursday the city's use of its share of the $800 billion federal stimulus fund has been disappointing.

The city received $111 million in stimulus under American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) approved by the Congress more than year ago.

"I'm disappointed that we've only created or retained 55 jobs after receiving $111 million," says Wendy Greuel, the city's controller, while releasing an audit report.

"With our local unemployment rate over 12% we need to do a better job cutting red tape and putting Angelenos back to work,” she added.

According to the report, the Los Angeles Department of Public Works generated only 45.46 jobs (the fraction of a job created or retained correlates to the number of actual hours of work) after receiving $70.65 million, while the target was 238 jobs.

Similarly, the city’s department of transportation, armed with a $40.8 million fund, created only 9 jobs in place of an expected 26 jobs.

The audit says the numbers were disappointing due to bureaucratic red tape, absence of competitive bidding for projects in private sectors, inappropriate tracking of stimulus money and a laxity in bringing out timely job reports.

But gosh! Haven't they heard? Since the first stimulus and 'Recovery Summer' was so successful, the Obama Administration wants another $50 billion in infrastructure spending! Even though signifcant infrastructure spending and improvement was promised with the first $787 billion in stimulus funding.

Hat-tip: 3wood over at Correspondence Committee.