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RALEIGH — Federal grants aimed at making the homes of low-income people more energy efficient were supposed to be one of the quickest injections of cash into the economy under last year’s federal stimulus bill.

But North Carolina has spent just $21.3 million — only one-sixth — of its $132 million weatherization grant as of last week.

“We had thought that weatherization was one of those (programs) that could move very quickly,” said Rep. Mel Watt, a Charlotte Democrat who represents parts of Guilford County.

Early on in the stimulus program, there was emphasis on shovel-ready projects. Weatherization efforts were thought to be some of the most shovel-ready work around.

From the program’s outset, North Carolina ran into a number of roadblocks. Rita Joyner, who took over the state’s Weatherization Assistance Program two weeks ago, pledges it will get on pace by the fall.

“Right now, we’re in a position of being able to meet our goal of weatherizing 1,000 units a month by September or October,” Joyner said Friday.

Under the program, local agencies help families with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty line — a maximum of about $44,100 for a family of four — make their houses more efficient by adding better insulation or weather stripping. In some cases, heating and cooling equipment could be repaired or replaced.

The stimulus cash was also supposed to prompt the nonprofits that do weatherization work for the state to train and employ more people.

Joyner would not speculate about what caused the delay, saying she was focused on the program’s future.

This much is clear: The money set aside for weatherization was only a small piece of the 2009 stimulus bill, but it was more than 10 times the amount North Carolina regularly receives for such efforts.

The man who had been running the program died suddenly from a stroke just as the massive influx of cash was heading to North Carolina.

At the same time, last year’s state budget transferred the State Energy Office and weatherization program from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Commerce. That change meant a refiling of paperwork with the federal government.

That bureaucratic shuffle delayed work at the state level until September, said State Energy Office spokesman Seth Effron. Money didn’t begin to filter to the nonprofits until November.

“And then in December and January, in terms of agencies getting things done, there were weather problems,” he said.

As a result of all those factors, only about 2,400 of the 22,203 housing units that could be weatherized with stimulus money have been completed.

That reflects a ramp-up in effort from the end of the year when only 197 homes had been weatherized with stimulus funds. And it more than doubles the amount of homes that would have been completed since July 1, 2009 with the state’s regular pot of weatherization money.

Still, the slow pace has not gone unnoticed by federal officials, who expected the stimulus to help quickly buoy the sagging economy.

“It’s bad news in the sense that it hasn’t been distributed,” Watt said. “The good news is the money has yet to go out and will still have some effect” on the economy.

North Carolina is not alone.

A February report by the U.S. Department of Energy’s inspector general found that of the $5 billion for weatherization projects, only $368.2 million —about 8 percent — had been spent by the end of 2009.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison, a state legislator who is known for her interest in environmental issues. “As someone who cares about curbing greenhouse gases, taking care of people in need and being good stewards of taxpayer money, it’s frustrating on all fronts.”

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com