Leaders of the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, the West Virginia National Guard, and the West Virginia State Auditor addressed the Joint Legislative Committee on Flooding. Their testimony amounted to a mixed bag of marginal progress and updates on developing scandals regarding how the state converts federal funds into tangible flood recovery.
“I can say it’s better than it was, I can’t say to what extent at this point, because we don’t see the numbers yet,” said co-Chairman Dean Jeffries, R-Kanawha, after the hearing. “We don’t have the numbers at this point.”
“I can’t say right now that it’s functioning, like I said, we’re still waiting, but I want to see some good results.”
On the upside, DHSEM Director Mike Todorovich told the committee that the department is set to close out the accounts on “several hundred” flood recovery projects.
The closeouts, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, require a formal inspection, but upon completion, the sub-recipients — cities, counties, agencies, etc. — receive retention funds from the state.
As Delegate Caleb Hanna, R-Webster, noted, this also alleviates municipalities of auditing requirements while the accounts are open, which can prove costly. He used Webster Springs as an example.
“Every year we keep that account open, they’re going to have to pay $6,000 to have that auditing done, and $6,000 to a community like that can go a really long way,” he said.
A report from the West Virginia State Auditor’s office brought the closeout issue into the spotlight, noting that the state (as of June 2018) had 575 FEMA projects awaiting closeout, dating back as far as 2012. The state owes its sub-recipients 25 percent of the cost of the project upon closeout, according to the report.
In an interview after the session, Todorovich said he did not know exactly how many projects would be closed or how much the state would owe, although he said it’d be “on the higher side” of somewhere between $1 million and $10 million from the governor’s contingency fund.
West Virginia National Guard Adjutant General James Hoyer said the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, an arm of FEMA, has just shy of $70 million in funds available to be spent on infrastructure, housing and other projects. As part of the program, there are $21 million in “oversubscribed dollars,” or additional tasks to be performed as funds are available.
Sen. Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, said after the meeting that he has been trying to lock down these HMGP numbers for years, and called it a show of real “positive steps” to know what the state’s needs look like and who needs what.
He said he has constituents in his district that have been on the “oversubscribed” list since 2016. Now that the actual dollar amounts are broken down, a newly formed subcommittee can consider transferring some of the dollar amounts around.
“We have money that’s been allocated for infrastructure, which is really important because an infrastructure project helps more people than a housing project,” he said. “But if we still have housing projects that haven’t been met, I don’t feel comfortable moving forward with infrastructure when you haven’t met people’s basic housing needs.”
On the downside, Todorovich and Hoyer told the committee that DHSEM is still in the process of correcting a number of the problems laid out in a damning audit of the department released in November.
While talk of DHSEM dominated the two-hour hearing, the committee also ran through expedited reviews of the West Virginia State Auditor’s report of the city of Richwood’s flood response, and an update of RISE West Virginia.
On Richwood, Steve Connolly, general counsel for the auditor, ran the committee through an abbreviated version of the office’s report. The document details how FEMA gave Richwood millions that yielded negligible recovery results, and how a quasi-governmental group purportedly designed to spearhead recovery efforts in Richwood paid themselves generous salaries.
Following the release of the report, Richwood’s mayor, former mayor, former town clerk, and police chief were charged with embezzlement and other offenses. They maintain their innocence. Connolly said Tuesday that authorities could file more charges down the line.
Fielding questions from Hanna, who represents Richwood, Connolly denied criticism from what he called a “vocal minority” of Richwood citizens claiming the state auditor’s report was politically-motivated and inaccurate. He said the facts contained within the report can speak for themselves.
After the hearing, Hanna said he thinks the auditors got it right and he stands with them.
“What happened in Richwood was just a travesty,” he said. “To see a town that had an opportunity, and yes I will say that this flood was an opportunity to rebuild and come back better than it was before, to be capitalized on and taken advantage of, that’s just really sad.”
In the last few minutes of the meeting, Hoyer offered an update on RISE West Virginia, a $150 million recovery effort funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program was mired in scandal due to a number of purchasing issues, inaccurate communications from staff, the ouster of senior officials at the Department of Commerce (which housed the program) including its cabinet secretary, and custodianship of the program shifting from Commerce to the National Guard.
Three years out from the flood, RISE has 498 active cases and has constructed 50 houses.
Delegate Kayla Kessinger, R-Fayette, voiced frustration to Hoyer that West Virginia had found its way back onto the federal government’s “slow spender” list, after a coming off of it a few months ago.
Hoyer said winter weather and environmental reviews had bogged things down, but he would expect to report significant progress by the end of June.
Reach Jake Zuckerman at
jake.zuckerman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or follow
@jake_zuckerman on Twitter.
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