Valley agencies devise plans for stimulus funds

Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties’ community action agencies are proposing radically different plans to spend the combined $2,374,513 in federal community services stimulus funds they have received.

This particular pot of stimulus money, provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and dispersed through the Ohio Department of Development’s Community Services Block Grant program, is to be used to “create and preserve jobs, promote economic recovery and assist those most impacted by the recession.”

How the agencies accomplish that is pretty much up to the them, subject to approval by state’s Department of Development, said Carol Bretz, executive director of the Community Action Agency of Columbiana County.

Read the full story in Monday’s Vindicator and on vindy.com