[StBernard] St. Bernard battling FEMA over overtime for sheriff's deputies after Katrina

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard battling FEMA over overtime for sheriff's deputies after Katrina
By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
January 24, 2010, 4:21AM


A three-judge panel in Washington will hear testimony in the coming months
about an ongoing dispute between the federal government and the St. Bernard
Parish Sheriff's Office regarding $3.4 million in overtime costs paid to
deputies in the year after Hurricane Katrina.

The Sheriff's Office has argued that the overtime expenses, from August
through December 2006, were necessary because of a reduced post-Katrina
police force and "an increasing number of arrests in St. Bernard Parish
which were directly related to conditions created by Hurricane Katrina."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency denied the $3.4 million in
reimbursement in 2007, as well as two subsequent appeals by St. Bernard
during the past two years. The agency argued that many of the overtime
expenses did not qualify as "emergency costs" that could be directly tied to
the hurricane.

The Sheriff's Office requested arbitration in October, a new court hearing
process that several local government agencies across the Gulf Coast are
using to settle conflicts with FEMA over the costs of large hurricane
recovery projects and other reimbursement. The case could be heard as early
as March, but a hearing date has not been finalized.

At issue are overtime costs for a wide swath of departments in the Sheriff's
Office, including the detective bureau, the jail and the community relations
department.

Sal Gutierrez, an attorney representing the Sheriff's Office, argued in a
letter that the department was at half staff in the year after Hurricane
Katrina. Detectives were often filling in to cover normal street patrols,
according to the letter, and the jail staff was spread thin.

Gutierrez also argued that FEMA had paid more than $9 million in overtime
costs for those same departments from August 2005 through July 2006. From
August through December 2006, FEMA paid only $720,000 of $4.1 million that
was requested.

"The situation facing law enforcement in St. Bernard Parish remained
fundamentally unchanged throughout 2006," Gutierrez wrote in requesting the
arbitration hearing. "It seems very arbitrary for FEMA to suddenly deny
reimbursement for the very same items which it found eligible" earlier.

St. Bernard Parish was almost entirely flooded by Hurricane Katrina, which
caused heavy wind damage and obliterated the levee system in August 2005.

Gutierrez said FEMA officials had told the Sheriff's Office beforehand that
the costs would be eligible.

In a response letter from FEMA's Office of Chief Counsel, the agency noted
that the Sheriff's Office had been unable to provide specific documentation
of the expenses for much of 2005 and 2006. In addition, the agency said the
federal government is not responsible for all costs related to staffing
changes made by the Sheriff's Office after Katrina.

"Costs resulting from internal operational changes made to execute the
agency's day-to-day mission after a disaster should not be confused with
eligible costs related to work performed to protect lives and property in
direct response to the disaster," the FEMA letter stated.

Increased patrols and measures to "generally provide safety and public
order" would not be justified expenses, FEMA argued, "because such work is
already required of the Sheriff Department and cannot be directly attributed
to the disaster."