nc counties still waiting for fema money

If you might recall, President Trump went to North Carolina early in his administration to view the disaster damages caused by Hurricane Helen. He lambasted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for having what he considered a totally botched disaster response. This was the beginning of his call to reform FEMA and make it more efficient and have states pick up more of the bill for disaster damages.

Then today there is this story in the NY Times, N.C. counties that busted budgets after Helene still waiting for FEMA to pay them back

Disaster relief funds for state and local government is called Public Assistance (PA). How that works is that governments have to first expend the dollars, for example debris removal, and then seek reimbursement from the federal government/FEMA. Some counties have expended more money for disaster recovery than their entire annual budget—and are still waiting for FEMA reimbursement.

Why is that? It appears that FEMA has been given more rules to follow and more approval processes that have to be followed in order to issue disaster recovery checks to states and local governments. So much for “reforming FEMA” and ensuring better efficiency.

Or, perhaps it is all part of the plan to wean state and local governments off federal disaster funding? Personally, I think it is more of the former. Just plain inefficiencies coming from inexperienced people running FEMA and DHS, gumming up the works and also FEMA trying to do the same amount of work with 25% fewer people.