NORWICH – The amount of stimulus money that flowed into Chenango County as a result of President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is much, much more than an estimated $1.6 million that was informally stated at last month’s meeting of the Chenango County Board of Supervisors.

About $7 million went into the county’s budgets of 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, including $3.24 million in direct Medicaid assistance.

In November, Supervisor James Bays, D-Smyrna, had requested a rundown of how ARRA money was spent in the county, and the impact it had, if any. Finance Committee Chairman Lawrence Wilcox, R-Oxford, at that meeting, said the county had conservatively set aside some stimulus money in order to make up for future shortfalls, but the demand for dollars had depleted the account.

“It helped us to hold steady in a bad time. But, it becomes very difficult to cut the programs that were established by the money in the following years when we no longer have it,” he said.

At this month’s meeting of the board, Clerk RC Woodford distributed a handout accounting for the remaining $3.42 million. The following county programs received funding from 2009 through this year:

• Aging nutrition services: $11,217