Gov. Bill Ritter expects to announce later this week how Colorado will set up the state effort to handle an influx of more than $2 billion of federal money that will be flowing in soon under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed Tuesday in Denver contains a wide range of programs - tax cuts for families, money for highway projects, job-training funds, additional unemployment payments - that states have to be ready to push out the door.

Federal estimates are that the stimulus program will result in 60,000 new or saved jobs in Colorado. That, coincidentally, is about the same number of people in the state receiving unemployment payments.

Ritter has his Cabinet officers from education to transportation, labor and employment to local affairs, preparing for the influx. And the governor's office has been looking at how other states are organizing for the effort as well.

Some states have task forces composed of key Cabinet officers and governors' staff members, while other states are establishing central offices under a "recovery czar."

With stimulus money coming in for so many disparate programs - some based on need and caseload, some based on formulas in existing programs - it's hard to say how much money each state will have to handle. Various federal agencies overseeing their portion of the stimulus must write rules and regulations based on the final version of the bill.

"The challenge with all of this is that it evolved very quickly in the last week," said Evan Dreyer, Ritter's spokesman. "There is nothing we consider final until the rules are written. Until that precise language filters down to the state level, I don't think anyone can say definitively how much goes to each state and here's where it will go."

Ritter is organizing the effort through his office of policy and initiatives, but the precise structure that will take - whether a task force, a czar or something in between - will be decided late this week.

Much of the stimulus money will be coming through existing programs, pipelines that already have rules and regulations but, for now, limited funding. States must be ready to deal with a flood of money coming through those programs in a short time.

Cher Haavind, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, said existing programs for job training and employment searches already have formulas for receiving federal funding, and applying the additional amounts, whatever they come to, should be straightforward.

"We know generally which programs will be affected," Haavind said, "but we haven't seen any specific dollar amounts."

Colorado has consulted with the regional office of the U.S. Department of Labor and expects to receive some money to go toward hiring more help for the state unemployment office, which has been swamped with new clients.

Highway and transit money will mostly come in through existing programs. But those have specific procedures for selection and approval that make the schedule tight.

Stacey Stegman, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, said the agency should be able to meet the deadlines.

"We could have work under way within two to three months," she said.

Accountability

Taxpayers can track every dollar spent through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act online:

* Recovery.gov

* Financialstability.gov

First project under way within minutes

* What: Replacing a 1,000-foot-long bridge that spans a Missouri River tributary about 30 miles southwest of Jefferson City, Mo.

* About the bridge: Built in 1933, the bridge was closed to large trucks in 2007 because of structural concerns.

* When started: Within minutes of the signing of the stimulus package.

* What's next? Missouri planned to begin work Tuesday on three other highway projects.

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