NEW YORK CITY-The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 brought $10 billion to New York City as of September 2010. That sum doesn’t mean $10 billion worth of stimulus funding for shovel-ready projects, though. In fact, infrastructure work has seen only 7% of that total, or about $700 million, the New York Building Congress says in a new report.

More than a quarter of New York City’s share of ARRA monies went to health and human services, notably Medicare and Medicaid assistance. Another $2.4 billion was used to reimburse the city for unemployment insurance expenditures, the Building Congress says, citing figures from State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

“New York State did reasonably well in overall stimulus funding compared with other states; that’s the good news,” Richard T. Anderson, Building Congress president, tells GlobeSt.com. “The less-than-good news is that we got relatively little job-producing construction funding.”

He adds that the bulk of the stimulus funds received by city and state “helped the operating account, which really didn’t create any new jobs. It may have saved jobs, but it certainly didn’t create new ones.”

A proposed $50-billion second round of stimulus funding, targeted to job creation, has been on the Obama administration’s wish list, but at present it looks as though it’s more likely to stay there than come to fruition. Anderson further notes that the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, or SAFETEA-LU, has yet to be reauthorized by Congress on a multi-year basis. “So there’s plenty of room for additional transportation and infrastructure funding, but it has not come forth,” he says.

That puts more onus on the city and state’s capital programs, which are “under a great deal of financial pressure already,” says Anderson. “And they’re not likely to get much if any relief from Washington, other than what they normally get.”

Although New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed 2011-2012 budget holds the line on current levels of funding for core transportation capital programs, rather than further reducing the funding as had been feared, Anderson doesn’t see Cuomo’s cost-cutting measures freeing up more monies for infrastructure. That being said, Anderson is encouraged that Cuomo sees infrastructure spending as “an investment.”

One way out may be through public-private partnerships. In a report issued last month, DiNapoli said such partnerships could go far toward paying for the estimated $250 billion worth of infrastructure projects the state will need to get done over the next 20 years. Yet he cautioned that they’re not risk-free.

Similarly, Anderson tells GlobeSt.com that that private financing of public facilities has “a lot of potential. Private financing is more important than ever, because public sources of funding are more limited these days. It frees up additional capital, and it brings some of the efficiencies that the private sector may be able to introduce to the overall equation.” But he adds that there’s a big qualifier.  

“The concept is being pursued in other parts of the country a lot more aggressively and more effectively than in New York,” he says. “The thing is, New York needs legislation allowing it.”

Although the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is pursuing a pilot PPP for the upgrade of the Goethals Bridge connecting Staten Island and New Jersey, doesn’t need such legislation, state agencies such as the New York State Department of Transportation do. A bill is likely to be introduced in Albany this year, Anderson says.