FEMA funding
Good morning,
Has anyone considered whether CARES Act funding must be exhausted before a county may seek reimbursement for costs through FEMA (given that "FEMA will not duplicate any assistance provided by HHS/CDChttps://www.fema.gov/news-release/2020/03/19/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-eligible-emergency-protective-measures")? Or may a county seek reimbursement through FEMA instead of from CARES Act funding?
Put another way, does the availability of CARES Act funding render FEMA reimbursements duplicative or just the actual use of the funds?
Thank you,
Cari Heicklen Brunkow
Assistant Hennepin County Attorney
Phone (612) 543-9050
Cari.Brunkow@hennepin.usmailto:Cari.Brunkow@hennepin.us
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Cari, we posed this exact question to FEMA soon after the CARES Act passed and haven't received guidance yet. I keep hearing that guidance is coming, but haven't seen anything yet, so if anyone else has, please share. Without clear guidance, we've been instructing our applicants (both locals and PNPs) to keep track of which expenses are paid for from which federal funding source so they can at least document no actual duplication of benefits. We're coordinating among our various state agencies that are pass-throughs (although not all of the federal funding is pass-through) to be prepared to give guidance to locals, when the funds start flowing, on which expenses to pay for from which category of funds to try to avoid the exact issue you raised. Only 4 local governments in our state qualify as direct recipients under the CRF, so the majority of CARES Act funding going to locals in our state will be pass-through, which we hope will give us the opportunity to help our locals sort through this in a way that, to the best we can absent FEMA guidance, avoids the issue you raised.
Of some comfort is the wording on the PA simplified application process reimbursement form, which merely asks whether the applicant has applied for any funding for COCID-19 from any other federal program and, if the answer is "yes," then the second question asked is whether the applicant has applied for any other federal funding for the activities for which it is seeking FEMA reimbursement. The wording of the PA form does not suggest that reimbursement will be denied if there is merely the possibility that another federal funding source could have covered those expenses. At least that's how I interpret it (absence clear guidance to the contrary) and the argument we are prepared to make on behalf of our applicants if they are denied reimbursement because they could have as opposed to actually did. The latter is clearly a violation of non-duplication of benefits; the former, in my opinion, it not.
Our state agencies will likely exhaust other federal funds first before submitting to FEMA because the other funds are 100% and FEMA Cat B is only 75% (I've not heard that any states have yet been granted 100% for Cat B). This isn't an issue for our local governments because our state always picks up the locals' non-federal share.
[http://www.sog.unc.edu/dailybulletin/images/SOGLogoForEmail.gif]Norma R. Houston
Lecturer in Public Law and Government
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Campus Box 3330, Knapp-Sanders Building
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3330
T: 919.843.8930
www.sog.unc.eduhttp://www.sog.unc.edu/
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From: Disasterrelief disasterrelief-bounces@lists.imla.org On Behalf Of Cari H Brunkow
Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2020 9:11 AM
To: Disaster Relief List disasterrelief@lists.imla.org disasterrelief@lists.imla.org
Subject: [Disasterrelief] FEMA funding
Good morning,
Has anyone considered whether CARES Act funding must be exhausted before a county may seek reimbursement for costs through FEMA (given that "FEMA will not duplicate any assistance provided by HHS/CDChttps://www.fema.gov/news-release/2020/03/19/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-eligible-emergency-protective-measures")? Or may a county seek reimbursement through FEMA instead of from CARES Act funding?
Put another way, does the availability of CARES Act funding render FEMA reimbursements duplicative or just the actual use of the funds?
Thank you,
Cari Heicklen Brunkow
Assistant Hennepin County Attorney
Phone (612) 543-9050
Cari.Brunkow@hennepin.usmailto:Cari.Brunkow@hennepin.us
Disclaimer: If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please immediately notify the sender of the transmission error and then promptly delete this message from your computer system.
