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LEWISTON —  Last summer was a tough one for road crews.

High asphalt prices and a tough economy had the digging and excavation specialists scrambling.

“Last year was tough, but this year is turning out different,” said Tony Longchamps of Longchamps and Sons in Lisbon. The company is working on two contracts in Auburn already. They’re bidding for more.

“Last year, we did three contracts,” he said. “So this season is different. It’s much better.”

He thanks the stimulus.

“It’s definitely helping us,” he said. “We’re busy now.”

Longchamps had the winning bid for two contracts to replace a storm-sewer system in Auburn’s Perryville neighborhood south and east of Pettengill Park. Crews broke ground on May 1, making it the first project in Lewiston-Auburn funded with federal money from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to break ground.

But it won’t be the last.

Crews from Gendron and Gendron were getting ready last week to break ground on a year-long project to widen Russell Street in Lewiston east of the Veterans Memorial Bridge. That $2 million project is being paid with federal road improvement money from the state Department of Transportation.

“If you look at the entire state, money from the stimulus is almost doubling what they do each year,” said Don Craig, director of the Androscoggin Transportation Resource Center. “We’re going to end up doing the projects we’d planned on as well as some newer ones. It’s going to have an impact.”

Public works projects in Androscoggin County are getting an infusion of $27.2 million this summer — that’s money for paving roads, fixing sidewalks, updating the water supply system and building a new water disinfecting system at Lake Auburn.

Federal grants are also coming down targeted to police and public safety, economic development and the schools.

“It’s definitely going to have an impact, on government at least,” said Phil Nadeau, Lewiston’s deputy city administrator. He’s helping to keep track of grants coming into the city, whether they come through the state or they come directly from the federal government.

In all, Lewiston and Auburn are expecting to receive $72.2 million from the federal stimulus package drawn up by President Barack Obama and approved by Congress earlier this year.

Most of that money, $52.7 million, is coming to the cities through the state.

Most of that money is going out in the for m of Medicaid to local hospitals and doctors offices. Kathy Bubar, director of integrated services for the state Department of Health and Human Services said the state is using that to pay past-due MaineCare bills. That’s an effort to repay the state’s debt for treatment of patients covered under MaineCare since 2005.

“We can use that money, according to federal guidelines, for anything other than putting it into savings or holding on to it for a rainy day,” Bubar said. “We have a fair amount of leeway, how we can use that money. So, we’re using it to plug that particular budget hole.”

It’s long-awaited money for the hospitals. Chuck Gill, spokesman for Central Maine Medical Center, said the hospital is expecting $26.5 million from the stimulus for past-due MaineCare payments. That’s the single largest stimulus payment coming to the cities currently. St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center is expecting $5.6 million in stimulus money to pay past-due MaineCare bills.

“It’s a start, and we are looking forward to getting it,” Gill said. “But it’s still less than half of what we’re owed.”

The hospital lists $62 million in past due MaineCare receipts, and that number continues to grow at $1 million per month, he said. Gill said the hospitals are hoping to get more stimulus money this fall.

Local schools are in a similar situation. Both Lewiston and Auburn school districts are expecting budget stabilization revenue to cover money the state cut from their budgets earlier this year. Lewiston is expecting $1.4 million and Auburn $1.2 million. That money is designed to cover state cuts from the current fiscal year 2008-09 budget as well as cuts in the 2009-10 budget.

“All this does is make up part of the gap they left us with,” Auburn School Superintendent Tom Morrill said.

But about $19 million is coming to Lewiston-Auburn directly, in the form of federal grants and programs. That includes $2.3 million in grants to remove lead and lead paint from area homes and apartments and $1.45 million Twin Cities police departments to provide crime prevention training and purchase equipment. Auburn is using $568,380 in grants to hire three police officers for three years.

Other projects are resurfacing Center Street, Minot Avenue, High Street and Court Street in Auburn, and a storm sewer line replacement project along Goff Brook in Lewiston.

“This is a good thing for the whole community,” Craig said. “it’s going to be a heavy construction season, that’s for sure, and the roads need it. It might not be the best thing for the traveling public, but it’s going to turn out for the best for everyone involved.”

City officials say its too soon to determine how many jobs the money will create.

“Part of the problem is that we don’t have formal criteria from the state or the federal government to say how we need to track job creation,” Lewiston’s Nadeau said. The federal Office of Management Budget this week published new criteria for reporting job creation reports, but Nadeau said city staff was still working on that.

“Every dollar we get has its own set of reporting requirements,” Nadeau said. “We have to be able to show how it’s all being spent, what it does and what kind of impact it’s having on job creation. But we’re still trying to figure out how they want it all created.”

  staylor@sunjournal.com