My H, who ran the bond finance company, is an attorney and a CPA, which is why he was hired to be CEO. His company was heavily involved in the recovery of post-Katrina New Orleans (they did more than just student loans, all kinds of state and municipal bond financing - schools, hospitals, fire trucks, housing, etc). FEMA sends in lots of personnel and provided New Orleans with hundreds of those white “FEMA trailers”. It’s a manpower heavy, multi-leveled, and extraordinarily complicated recovery effort. FEMA personnel were temporarily housed in Baton Rouge for months following Katrina. And a skeleton crew of FEMA personnel stayed in the NOLA area for several years afterward. They didn’t do the actual reconstruction work, but they ran a bunch of stuff. My H had a lease-to-own housing project in the infamous 9th Ward, where everything was destroyed that needed coordination with FEMA to settle. He also did bridge loans for NOLA businesses due to the truly weird way that FEMA pays for recovery rebuilding. It’s a reimbursement program. You pay to rebuild your office, building, or factory, whatever, and FEMA reimburses you. Most people and small business owners don’t have the cash or credit to front those costs, so agencies like the one my H ran loan out or grant the upfront costs so the rebuild can happen and then the business gets their FEMA reimbursement and pays back the loan (or not if it was a grant). The whole thing is ridiculously complicated and frustrating beyond belief.
I’m not at all sure this would work well if left to the states, but what FEMA currently does needs reform. It’s too complicated for me to adequately explain, but my H is retired now, and wants to forget that the federal government even exists. So he’s not going to help me answer your questions. Fwiw, my cousin’s wife, newly retired from the Marines (as was my cousin) returned to New Orleans and she worked the logistics for FEMA for about 5 years post Katrina. She had been the main supply officer for the Southeast quadrant of the US as a Marine supply officer, so she was well suited for the job. Up close and personal, she didn’t have a lot of good things to say about FEMA. They were not as efficient as the Marines in her opinion.
Oh yes, the federal systems need an overhaul, no disagreement there. They make everything so difficult for a grantee. But as a taxpayer, I do appreciate oversight of use of my federal dollars. Each federal agency adheres to certain regulations, such as CFR (code of federal regulations), but their own internal systems are distinct and onerous to use. You need to manage a dozen different sites, with a dozen different logons, with a dozen different payment systems, etc. The Feds require the States to do sub-recipient monitoring, which at least in NH, has led to many grantees (not every state agency operates the same way either!) needing to copy every single damn receipt, payment, payroll detail, etc to the state every single month. That is not monitoring and increases administrative burdens on the recipients for which they only want to pay 15% indirect cost.
I have no experience with FEMA, professionally or personally. Knock on wood.
But where is the oversight now? I sent Bill Cassidy an angry email on Friday because Reuters announced that the CDC was starting a research study to find out if there’s any connection between vaccines and autism! Something Cassidy railed against in both RFK Jr’s hearing, and just this past week during Jay Bhattacharya’s hearing. Supposedly, Cassidy pounded his fist on the table that HHS should NOT waste a dime of taxpayer money on research into the settled science that vaccines do NOT cause autism. And in less than 48 hours the CDC says it’s going to do just that. So I let Cassidy have it on the “don’t you dare waste my tax money on redoing settled science” and “you pounded your fist in this issue in public - WTH???”.
The hypocrisy of this administration is mind blowing. And these appointees lie to these Senators to their faces, but get approved anyway. It’s a nightmare I can’t wake up from.
My H, who ran the bond finance company, is an attorney and a CPA, which is why he was hired to be CEO. His company was heavily involved in the recovery of post-Katrina New Orleans (they did more than just student loans, all kinds of state and municipal bond financing - schools, hospitals, fire trucks, housing, etc). FEMA sends in lots of personnel and provided New Orleans with hundreds of those white “FEMA trailers”. It’s a manpower heavy, multi-leveled, and extraordinarily complicated recovery effort. FEMA personnel were temporarily housed in Baton Rouge for months following Katrina. And a skeleton crew of FEMA personnel stayed in the NOLA area for several years afterward. They didn’t do the actual reconstruction work, but they ran a bunch of stuff. My H had a lease-to-own housing project in the infamous 9th Ward, where everything was destroyed that needed coordination with FEMA to settle. He also did bridge loans for NOLA businesses due to the truly weird way that FEMA pays for recovery rebuilding. It’s a reimbursement program. You pay to rebuild your office, building, or factory, whatever, and FEMA reimburses you. Most people and small business owners don’t have the cash or credit to front those costs, so agencies like the one my H ran loan out or grant the upfront costs so the rebuild can happen and then the business gets their FEMA reimbursement and pays back the loan (or not if it was a grant). The whole thing is ridiculously complicated and frustrating beyond belief.
I’m not at all sure this would work well if left to the states, but what FEMA currently does needs reform. It’s too complicated for me to adequately explain, but my H is retired now, and wants to forget that the federal government even exists. So he’s not going to help me answer your questions. Fwiw, my cousin’s wife, newly retired from the Marines (as was my cousin) returned to New Orleans and she worked the logistics for FEMA for about 5 years post Katrina. She had been the main supply officer for the Southeast quadrant of the US as a Marine supply officer, so she was well suited for the job. Up close and personal, she didn’t have a lot of good things to say about FEMA. They were not as efficient as the Marines in her opinion.
Oh yes, the federal systems need an overhaul, no disagreement there. They make everything so difficult for a grantee. But as a taxpayer, I do appreciate oversight of use of my federal dollars. Each federal agency adheres to certain regulations, such as CFR (code of federal regulations), but their own internal systems are distinct and onerous to use. You need to manage a dozen different sites, with a dozen different logons, with a dozen different payment systems, etc. The Feds require the States to do sub-recipient monitoring, which at least in NH, has led to many grantees (not every state agency operates the same way either!) needing to copy every single damn receipt, payment, payroll detail, etc to the state every single month. That is not monitoring and increases administrative burdens on the recipients for which they only want to pay 15% indirect cost.
I have no experience with FEMA, professionally or personally. Knock on wood.
But where is the oversight now? I sent Bill Cassidy an angry email on Friday because Reuters announced that the CDC was starting a research study to find out if there’s any connection between vaccines and autism! Something Cassidy railed against in both RFK Jr’s hearing, and just this past week during Jay Bhattacharya’s hearing. Supposedly, Cassidy pounded his fist on the table that HHS should NOT waste a dime of taxpayer money on research into the settled science that vaccines do NOT cause autism. And in less than 48 hours the CDC says it’s going to do just that. So I let Cassidy have it on the “don’t you dare waste my tax money on redoing settled science” and “you pounded your fist in this issue in public - WTH???”.
The hypocrisy of this administration is mind blowing. And these appointees lie to these Senators to their faces, but get approved anyway. It’s a nightmare I can’t wake up from.