Colombian President Uribe Velez addresses the gathering of U.S. mayors Saturday. Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don L. Robart gives his first impression of the Capital City. Story Page A9. Get updates, video, comment and more on projo.com.

PROVIDENCE — Mayors from around the country meeting at the Rhode Island Convention Center Saturday said that metropolitan areas have been “shortchanged” so far in the doling out of federal stimulus money.

Cities, they said, have received significantly less than they deserve given their dominant role in the national economy, and that the money has come to them slower than hoped, to the detriment of city neighborhoods, which continue to bear the brunt of the pain in the national recession.

A report prepared for the U.S. Conference of Mayors confirmed as much, said the mayors.

State governments have approved $18.62-billion worth of transportation projects, but the nation’s largest 85 metro areas (including the Providence-New Bedford-Fall River metropolitan area) account for just under half, or $8.8 billion, of those funds, according to the mayors’ conference report entitled “U.S. Metro Economies and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

The report estimates that metro-area unemployment will exceed 10 percent next year and that 85 percent of job losses during the recession will occur in the nation’s 363 metro areas.

Mayors argue that metro areas, which represent 73 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product and 63 percent of the nation’s population, should have received a bigger share of the stimulus money by now.

“This report sounds an important alarm,” said Dallas Mayor Thomas Leppert, whose subcommittee on metro economies reviewed the report’s findings on Saturday. “It shows that we are not spending these stimulus dollars very efficiently and effectively. It shows that our people are being shortchanged. We have a system of allocating transportation dollars that is outdated, and that is a real concern. We need something new.”

The findings come as state funding allocations for the first phase of federal stimulus dollars must be completed by the end of the month.

They also reflect the change in tone of the annual gathering of mayors, which conference officials this year had billed as an Obama “love fest,” with a hundred federal officials talking to mayors throughout the four-day conference about the federal economic stimulus plan.

As the conference entered its second full day, it was apparent that mayors were more interested in ratcheting up the pressure on the Obama administration to send more of the federal largesse directly to cities than they were in praising the president’s efforts so far.

Mesa, Ariz., Mayor Scott Smith said that his city of 453,000 people (which is part of the Phoenix-Scottsdale metropolitan area) has received one-third of the money allocated to Arizona even though the metro area accounts for three-fourths of the gross state product. “We’re holding steady, but I think we’ve all lost the opportunity to get our communities back on track faster at this point,” said Smith.

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, president of the mayors’ conference, agreed: “The national economy will only recover when our metro areas recover, yet in allocating stimulus transportation funds, states continue to underfund the very metros that drive the nation’s economy.”

Criticism of the stimulus was not unanimous, however.

“Look, we’ve never had $787 billion in federal spending in the history of the nation,” said Philadelphia Mayor Michael C. Nutter. “We’ve got to be focused on doing the best we can, and that means doing a little more work and a little less complaining.”

U.S. Conference of Mayors Executive Director Thomas Cochran said the conference is considering drawing up official resolutions to recommend to the Obama administration on how to improve the disbursement of the next rounds of stimulus funds. Those resolutions would be introduced, debated and voted on by mayors on Monday, the final day of the conference.

“We all have our ideas of how this [stimulus money] should work,” said Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. “But I don’t think there is any mayor that would disagree that it would help if a bigger share went directly to cities. That’s the economic engine of the state.”

Added Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels: “We all want this stimulus to work.”

The mayors’ report, which was prepared by financial analysis firm IHS Global Insight, examined the first major portion of Mr. Obama’s stimulus plan –– the $18.62 billion in surface transportation funds apportioned to states under programs administered by the Federal Highway Administration.

Locally, it found that the Providence-New Bedford-Fall River metro area, which had an unemployment rate of about 11 percent in April, had received just 14 percent of the $140 million allocated to Rhode Island, and 3 percent of $336 million that Massachusetts has received.

Providence’s statistics were in keeping with how poorly other metro areas fared in garnering a share of the stimulus money for infrastructure improvements.

Cleveland and Cincinnati, for example, account for 40 percent of Ohio’s economy, yet received less than 5 percent of what was allocated to their state.

Similarly, Indianapolis generates 39 percent of Indiana’s economic activity, and received only 4 percent of the state’s stimulus funds.

pmarcelo@projo.com