(RTTNews) - Now that President Barack Obama has signed a $787 billion bill designed to stimulate the economy and ease the worst effects of the nation’s recession, all eyes are on governors and state legislatures around the country to be sure the money is spent wisely.

“Everyone is on the spot for spending it wisely,” John Thomasian, director of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, told RTTNews. “Every project is going to be under scrutiny.”

He added, “My sense is that any dollars that get down to the local level outside of the [federal] formulas will go to public safety, will go to other social services. They’re not going to go into parks and recreation.”

Thomasian, who spoke to RTTNews following a panel discussion of the impacts of the stimulus package on state and local governments, added that the role of his organization would be to help governors by passing along information about projects in various states.

However, he emphasized that the states are well prepared to use the large infusion of federal funds wisely.

“The governors are ready to deal with this one,” he said.

During the panel, Thomasian recognized that there would be challenges for some programs to measure whether or not the stimulus funds were working as intended.

“There’s not a universal metric for success,” he said. “There are going to be some that create jobs, and certainly on the transportation side success is going to be was the project brought in on time and within budget.”

He added, “Transparency is 90 percent of accountability, because it does allow the public to judge whether something has had an effect.”

The NGA will also encourage the governors to think strategically about how they use new funds to boost job training programs, emphasizing training in areas that are likely to expand as the economy recovers.

“We recommend to governors that they think carefully about really trying to channel those dollars in the most effective way possible,” Thomasian said. “It’s going to be very important that the training really goes to those areas which are most likely to recover and expand in the state.”

He added, “They’re going to have to be more strategic than ever before.”

Still, Thomasian and Michael Bird, federal affairs counsel for the National Conference of State Legislatures, emphasized that the stimulus bill would be far from a panacea for state budget woes.

“This is making something very bad less bad,” Thomasian said.

Bird added, “This is a band aid on a sore that needs stitches. That’s the bottom line.”

“For some states, this may be just enough, for others maybe it just pushes some decisions off until 2011,” Bird said. “But for the most part, it allows us to continue to partner and hopefully turn around.”

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