Katrina Recovery: Where's the Money? by Keith Burton - GCN 3/5/09 For more than three years GCN has been noting that the recovery from
Hurricane Katrina has moved too Yesterday, in a meeting before the sluggishly performing Gulf Coast Business Council, Governor Haley Barbour said that there is over $2.8 billion of unspent money earmarked to help the Coast recover that has yet to be spent. The governor urged local political and business leaders to "Pick up the pace" or the money would be allocated elsewhere in the state. "I am proud of the progress that has been made, but we all know that we have to step it up a notch. We have to take another step down the road in rebuilding the Mississippi Gulf Coast bigger and better. I'm not trying to be critical, I'm just trying to be honest about what we have to do," he said. While some communities, such as Biloxi and those in Jackson County have aggressively pushed rebuilding, much of the Coast has been bogged down with finding ways to penetrate the maze of regulations required by the Katrina recovery bureaucracy run by FEMA. Among the problems GCN continues to hear, is that many local communities do not have the cash on hand to spend on projects to qualify for the federal reimbursements. FEMA has long said that it is a reimbursement agency. That is, the community spends its money, and then FEMA reimburses the local community for the money spent. If the city or county doesn't have the money to spend, no money comes from FEMA. While there are straight-out FEMA funding for some projects, getting the money requires a complicated and often frustrating series of negotiations as FEMA and the local entity battle back and forth over how projects should be done. All of this is done in the background, invisible to the public and the news media. GCN has sought repeatedly to get specific information from FEMA and local governments on specific projects. FEMA officials say that they cannot comment on what they are doing with local governments. However, local governments are free to talk. But rarely is that done. Local politicians and groups tasked for Katrina recovery rarely want to say they are behind and can't get things done. The Governor, in his comments Wednesday seems to recognize the problems. He said that he was going to meet with FEMA's top officials to see if he could get the agency to work out some of the hangup points by June 30. This effort surely is welcome, but it appears awfully late in the process. In addition, local officials have long said they didn't have the funding to hire additional staff to work on projects. The result is that communities have had to use staff that they had before the hurricane and still deal with the day-to-day work that they have to do. It seems no one has found a way to add staffing money to cities and counties affected by the Katrina. Then there are also problems with not enough engineering , architects and construction companies on the Coast for the amount of work needed. Those problems would seem to be a failure not only with local governments, but the state as certainly the Mississippi Development Authority could have promoted the area better nationwide to get the professional expertise into the areas that are needed. But it also could reflect how some powerful local businesses have sought to block access to out of state or out of area companies in an effort to keep the recovery money "in house" so to speak. There has been great progress since the Hurricane, but any look around and you see so much more that needs to be done. The proof that money isn't the issue is alarming this many months after Katrina. But what is more alarming is that the slow progress of the recovery on so many things, such as housing, public services, and buildings, is proof of a failure at the political level, which the state has left unresolved, perhaps until now. The Coast is also in great need of jobs that pay well enough for the people to live here. The homes and apartments that have been built in the recovery are too expensive for many people. The jobs in the area have not kept up with the increasing costs of living on the Coast. Too many businesses still see the area as a place where people are paid less than other areas, or their businesses cannot make the money they need to pay a decent wage. But it is remarkable how many national businesses in the area pay less in our area than they pay in their stores in other states. It seems Mississippi's leaders are more interested in keeping Mississippi a low pay state than in seeing the area prosper. The governor says he is going to be firm with local governments to find ways to move approved projects forward. But it is also clear that the state needs to find focus as well and not enough has been done. Additional Information: Barbour:
Spend Money by Sept. 1 - Sun Herald Two-Thirds of the Federal Money Promised for Katrina Recovery Yet to be Spent - Washington Times
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slowly and has questioned "Where is the Money?" Now we know.