Kevin Spradlin
Cumberland Times-News
June 25, 2009 11:51 pm
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CUMBERLAND — Allegany County officials on Thursday said misspending by the Federal Emergency Management Agency wouldn’t impact the existing relationship between the two governments.
According to The Associated Press, a federal Homeland Security Inspector General report said FEMA “ignored the law and misused millions of dollars to build two warehouses after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to government investigators.”
The funding for those buildings apparently came from disaster relief funds that were to provide temporary housing units to shelter disaster victims, a violation of the Stafford Act.
The report, expected to be released Friday, shows that more than $7.2 million was misspent and that “FEMA had no authority to construct these buildings and, therefore, violated federal laws,” according to the IG report.
The agency’s Logistics Management Directorate “took steps to acquire the buildings, apparently without notifying the Office of the Administrator, which has gone on record stating that senior agency leadership disallowed both project proposals,” the report said of the North Branch Industrial Park building and a second at a similar staging area in Selma, Ala. “Documents indicate that the program office nevertheless moved forward with the projects and certified funding availability.”
The report said FEMA officials violated a prohibition against agreeing to spend money without congressional authority and that at least some of that money should have gone to Hurricane Katrina victims in Louisiana. FEMA imposed in early 2007 a stop-work order for a month to allow for an internal review. Construction resumed and both projects were completed that year.
Gary Moore, director of the Allegany County Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security, said Thursday that the county’s lease is with the U.S. General Services Administration and not FEMA. However, the IG report’s recommendations left open the disposition of the building to the FEMA administrator.
“I don’t think it will affect it at all,” Moore said. “The incident took place after the contract was signed.”
County Attorney Bill Rudd and Commissioner Jim Stakem both said it was an internal matter for FEMA.
“As far as I’m concerned, we have a lease,” Rudd said.
Moore said he first became aware something was amiss when investigators contacted him. He was interviewed at least twice, although he wouldn’t provide a timeline of his involvement in the investigation because FEMA hadn’t cleared him to discuss his participation.
“I willingly took part in the investigation,” Moore said.
He said it was important to note that no one had been accused of lining their pockets with federal money and appeared to be instead “just a case of somebody trying to get all that work done.”
Any repercussions to those responsible, Moore said, probably would “depend on the severity and nature. I know FEMA looks extremely serious (at issues like this, but in) incidents like this, where a lot of it is procedural, they put checks and balances in place to make sure it didn’t happen again.”
Moore noted that it wasn’t the entire facility in question but only the construction of a single building, a pre-fabricated structure encompassing 58,000 square feet. Final cost for the building was $3,536,819. Contractors are eligible to be paid for any time lost during a stop-work order and $351,957 was added to the cost of the Cumberland facility.
FEMA also avoided the bid process by breaking the project into two components, one for $2.8 million and another for nearly $800,000, according to the report.
Moore said he likely became involved in the investigation due to his role in erecting tents for storage. The building in question replaced those tents, Moore said.
Moore left FEMA, where he served as director of logistics, in April 2006 — about the same time project managers decided to have a building erected instead of a tent, according to the report — and began county employment on July 1 of the same year. The contract for the Cumberland building was awarded on Sept. 13 that year and the project commenced the following month.
Moore met Bill Turnbull, who oversees operations at the Mexico Farms facility, while working together for FEMA in Washington, D.C. It was Moore who told Turnbull that FEMA had the opportunity to operate a facility at Mexico Farms.
Turnbull arrived on site in September 2004 with one other worker. The facility employs nearly 100 workers and the federal government has spent well over $17 million on the facility. A call to Turnbull’s office was not immediately returned.
In May 2007, the General Services Administration, on behalf of FEMA, agreed to a 10-year lease with Allegany County government at an annual rent of more than $1.5 million.
In addition to housing mobile homes and trailers, the Mexico Farms site has a refurbishing program where those trailers returned are evaluated. If they meet the government’s criteria, they’re refurbished and sent back out; if they don’t, they’re sold.
A sales team, motor vehicle maintenance area, metal fabrication shop and mobile disaster response vehicle program also are housed at the site.
Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.
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