CEOs say stimulus money slow to come

Despite all that shovel ready stuff we heard earlier in the year, a majority of top construction company CEOs say the stimulus bill (aka the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) hasn’t done much to boost their businesses.The survey, conducted by the Construction Industry Roundtable and FMI Research found 62 percent of respondents saying the stimulus bill has had no effect on their business.

Of course, it will take a while for this money to be allocated–construction never moves as fast as a politician’s mouth. And all things being equal, the construction industry pretty much got the shaft in this bill, with less than 10-percent of the funds going to actual infrastructure. Still, there are companies like California’s Sukut Construction, which benefited by rapidly positioning itself to be ready to bid on most of these ARRA funded projects.  Sukut’s example is worth studying as public works is where the money is now and there is unlikely to be a rebound in the housing markets or retail development for several years to come.