[StBernard] State bears brunt of complaints about delays in FEMA funding

[Westley Annis]

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - FEMA used to be the four-letter word of choice for many
frustrated local officials after Hurricane Katrina. These days, many city
and parish leaders are more likely to curse the state when they complain
about the pace of storm recovery.

 
Much of the growing tension between state and local officials in Louisiana
stems from delays in a federal program that reimburses local officials for a
host of infrastructure projects, including road repairs, public building
construction and debris removal.
 
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has paid Louisiana roughly $5.1
billion to reimburse local officials for infrastructure projects following
Katrina, but only about $2 billion of that money has reached communities 16
months after the storm.
 
Most of the complaints I get from my staff now have to do with holdups at
the state level," said Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, who is
waiting for the state to forward his parish roughly $20 million of the $50
million that FEMA has paid for these "public assistance" projects. 
 
Politicians and homeowners alike save their most blistering attacks for the
architects of the state's much-maligned Road Home program. Nearly 90,000
people in Louisiana have applied for federal grants of up to $150,000, but
the money only has reached about 100 applicants so far.
 
Funding for Road Home grants is administered separately from FEMA's public
assistance payments, but complaints about the two programs are similar: The
money is coming too slow. Mistakes, bureaucratic red tape and communication
breakdowns are hampering the process.
 
Local officials must endure months of haggling and mounds of paperwork
before FEMA agrees to pay for the work, but the agency's blessing isn't the
end of the process. The Gov.'s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency
Preparedness conducts a separate review of each project's costs before it
releases the money.
 
These so-called "pre-audits" by the state aren't required by federal law and
weren't part of Louisiana's response to disasters before Katrina, said
Virginia Boulet, an adviser to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.
 
Boulet said a separate state audit may root out the "tiniest bit of fraud"
in the public assistance program. "But if your purpose is to rebuild
Louisiana quickly, the pre-audit procedure is not something you come up with
to accomplish that," she added.
St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis questions why the state can't
streamline its auditing process and collaborate more closely with FEMA to
avoid duplication.
 
It just slows the process down by having to do it all a second time," he
said.
 
Col. Jeff Smith, head of the governor's homeland security office, said his
office is exploring ways to speed up the reimbursement process. But the
state, he stressed, can't release the money without performing its own
checks on the projects.
 
The state's audits haven't uncovered any fraud, but have identified
"numerous cases where prices charged were not supported by market value,"
Smith said
 
I think we're doing a pretty doggone good job, despite what you're hearing,"
he added. 
Smith said he's asking lawmakers to approve funding for additional staff
members who can closely work with local officials as they start to break
ground on more complex construction projects.
In the meantime, he suggested, FEMA may be doing a better job than the state
of managing "public relations" and deflecting blame for funding delays.
 
"I don't think anybody wins here," he said, "but at some point we've got to
speak out."
With the finger-pointing between the federal, state and local officials
growing more intense, 
 
New Orleans officials also are mounting a concerted effort to win the public
relations war.
City officials recently invited reporters to a briefing where they
documented their complaints about FEMA and the state's handling of the
public assistance process. One of the visual aids they passed out was a flow
chart they call the "circle of futility" that leaves "city recovery" outside
the loop.
 
"We're basically running out of money," said Cynthia Sylvain-Lear, Nagin's
deputy chief administrative officer. "We've got to get the reimbursements
in."