UPDATED: Hillary still owes Mark Penn $1 million — but he got the $2.8 million stimulus contract, so no biggie.

According to The Hill today, the same firm received a $2.8 million stimulus subcontract “for media services and outreach to help prepare ‘unready’ households for the DTV transition” — a contract that Republican Senators contend was “pure waste.”

Thanks to Mark Penn, a handful of people avoided the inconvenience of losing a few days’ television service. And thanks to the stimulus, Penn is not being inconvenienced so much by the now-defunct Clinton campaign’s outstanding debts to him.

The Hill‘s story states that Clinton’s campaign paid off its debts to Penn in July, but the relevant FEC document says that only about one-third of a $1.5 million debt was repaid during the third quarter of this year, and that $995,500 in debt to Penn’s firm remained as of September 30.

After paying off more than $20 million in debt (most of it owed to herself) Clinton’s now-defunct campaign still has nearly $2 million on hand, in part thanks to efforts by then-Senator Obama to have his donors fill her coffers last year.

UPDATE: Burson-Marsteller, Penn’s firm that awarded the subcontract to his other firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland, has responded to The Hill‘s story.

Burson-Marsteller, and the approved set of vendors including its sister company Penn, Schoen and Berland LLC, successfully completed the work with the FCC on time and under budget. The contract allowed for $6 million, but only $4.36 million of that total was spent to complete the initiative.

Of the $4.36 million actually spent, most went for the media buy and to a long list of 3^rd party vendors.

Penn Schoen Berland total fees for creation of the ad campaign were $142,000. The rest was disbursed to a media buy of $2.439 million that went to newspapers and local radio stations around the country and $147,000 to advertising production houses. Its total fees were $142,000.00.