Federal stimulus money is not going where it's needed most. That's the conclusion of an analysis by the Associated Press published this week.

The AP report noted that Elk County, Pa., despite its 13.8 percent unemployment rate, is not getting federal stimulus money. Yet the AP found that Riley County, Kan., which is a military and college community with a 3.4 percent unemployment rate, is getting $56 million in federal stimulus money for highway work, improvements to an intersection and restoration of a historic farmhouse.

Finding that federal stimulus money is not going where it is most needed should not come as a surprise. It seems an impossible task for federal and state bureaucrats to efficiently direct and track $787 billion in stimulus spending.

While it's still the first phase of stimulus spending, the AP report should be a wake-up call to President Barack Obama and his administration to do a better job of managing the stimulus spending. Obama repeatedly has promised that the $787 billion will be spent wisely and will be directed to areas where the need is greatest.

Clearly, in Elk County, once home to a healthy metals industry, the Obama administration has failed to live up to its promises.

There is a partial answer that is a Catch 22-situation: Because Elk County lacked money to do preliminary planning and engineering to create "shovel ready" projects, it didn't get stimulus money, which was sold by supporters as a way to quickly create jobs.

While looking at where stimulus money is being spent or not spent, it's worth noting another questionable action in Pennsylvania.

Some eyebrows were raised when it was learned that the John Murtha Airport, near Johnstown, was approved as one of the first recipients of federal stimulus money.

Just a few weeks prior to that, the John Murtha (Johnstown-Cambria County) Airport was the subject of a major story in the Washington Post. The article illustrated the power of the congressman to direct the spending of federal tax dollars, regardless of the economic justification.

The article noted that the airport, which averages about 20 commuter airline passengers a day, has been the recipient of nearly $200 million in federal funding in recent years. The reporter described a curious scene at the airport in which seven security employees outnumbered the four people waiting to board a flight.

One of the more questionable federally funded projects at the Murtha airport is the $8 million spent on a state-of-the-art radar system, usually found only at international airports. The radar system operates, but is unmanned because of budgetary issues at the state Air National Guard, which was supposed to staff the facility.

Other recent taxpayer-funded improvements include a 2006 Defense Department earmark to spend $17.8 million to upgrade the airport's main runway so that it could handle large commercial jets and military aircraft. But there is very limited such usage at the airport. The airport sees such little commercial traffic that Steve Ellis of the Taxpayers for Common Sense says it's not so much an airport as "almost a museum piece."

Passenger numbers are so low that each passenger's ticket is subsidized to the tune of $147 by federal taxpayers. This same subsidy system exists at other rural airports, but Johnstown's subsidy level reportedly is double the national average.

Because of declining passenger numbers, the airport was scheduled to see its federal funding drop to $150,000 a year, down from $1 million a year. Murtha wrote to the Federal Aviation Administration urging retention of prior funding, but the FAA stuck with its plan.

But not long after learning that the FAA would not reverse the airport's planned funding cuts, Murtha landed the $800,000 in federal stimulus money to repave the airport's little-used backup runway.

More than one commentator has wondered about spending $800,000 to repave a backup runway at an airport whose primary runway handles just six commercial flights a day.

Sadly, the John Murtha Airport is not the only beneficiary of questionable taxpayer funding. But the Johnstown facility certainly has the most famous patron in Congress, where Murtha has earned a reputation for his tenacity in "bringing home the bacon." But the amount of bacon Murtha brings to his district is disproportionate, and no doubt consumes federal funding that could go to other districts.

The more stories like stimulus- money-for-a-backup-runway-repaving-project that the public hears about, the more hollow Obama's words will sound when promising prudent spending of taxpayer dollars.

The president has been saying all the right things: targeted spending, job-creation priority, cutting government waste, reviewing the federal budget line by line. But stories such as Elk County and the Murtha airport raise suspicions that his words are just that — words — and not much is changing in Washington.

There still is time to change that perception — just not a lot of time.