Local governments react to push in legislation to prevent FEMA claw-backs

BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Congressman Neal Dunn introduced his legislation Thursday called 'Streamlined FEMA Cost Exemption Act.'
The bill would prevent FEMA 'Claw-backs' of public assistance grants for disaster recovery projects. Both Bay and Washington counties have experience with this issue.
'They awarded the funds. And then they've come back and said, well, we shouldn't have done that, but they did. So, from that, our position is we should not be penalized for that. But again, based on how our staff works and with the ability of having the surtax, we've started reserving to make sure we're able to cover this claw-back in the event that they are successful in pursuing those funds,' Bay County Commissioner Doug Moore said.
Rural areas like Washington County are not as equipped to handle a claw-back.
'You know, you can't do that to rural counties, especially rural fiscally constrained counties. Washington County is one of the counties involved in this. Can you imagine them coming up with $100 million? Not in a thousand years,' U.S. Congressman Neal Dunn said.
Dunn says approving funds for any community's disaster recovery and then taking it back is unacceptable. There was existing legislation that was supposed to strengthen FEMA regulations in 2018.
U.S. Congressman introduces bill to hold FEMA accountable
Dunn says his bill will go further, limiting the opportunity for excuses or mistakes, requiring the FEMA administrator to develop and establish an 'Acceptable error ratio' for allocations during eligibility negotiations. It would also prohibit FEMA from rescinding certain public assistance grants by adjusting the statute of limitations from three years to two.
Dunn believes the bill has a good chance of passing.
'It turns out there's a lot of people in Congress who are upset with FEMA right now. As you can imagine. I think it's going to be a very popular bill, frankly. On both sides of the aisle,' Dunn said.
The bill would be popular with local governments as well.
'It would be wonderful if there was legislation that was able to pass that would be set up in a way that, once FEMA awarded a project, that if everything was done correctly and we followed the requirements of that contract, that they could not come back afterwards and go, 'oops', Moore said.
Commissioner Moore says even though Bay County is prepared, the potential threat of returning that money has created a ripple effect, slowing and even halting several county projects.
'It would be a marvelous thing for us to know that going forward, we would be able to be set up in place to know that we wouldn't get the rug pulled out from under us after we were doing work for recovery for our citizens,' Moore added.
With the 2025 hurricane season underway, many Floridians are worried about FEMA's ability to help.
Dunn says FEMA has the budget to do what's necessary.
'FEMA gets a very, very rich budget from Congress, and I could show you over the years how it's increased, but it has been a prodigious amount of money in the last few years that they've gotten in emergency, what we call disaster supplemental money. And they have literally gotten tens and tens of billions of dollars. And there's no excuse for them hoarding that money and no excuse for them clawing back money,' Dunn continued.
For a full rundown on this bill, click here.
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