Fort Myers Beach audit committee hears finance director update on FEMA reimbursements, software rollouts and staffing

Fort Myers Beach Finance Director Joe Onczyk told the town—s Audit Committee on an update that centered on hurricane-recovery reimbursements, software conversions and staffing. He said the town has nearly $7 million in remaining FEMA receivables based on about $30 million of emergency expenditures to date.

The figures are part of a month-long reconciliation Onczyk said the finance team prepared to support the audit. "We had 29, almost $30,000,000 of expenditures so far," he said. After insurance proceeds and FEMA payments the town—s internal estimate left "still $7,000,000 remaining to be collected from FEMA," Onczyk said. He separately identified an outstanding $1,000,000 insurance receivable related to temporary town-hall housing.

The receivable estimate, Onczyk explained, is based only on money the town has already spent; it does not include projects not yet billed or additional future expenditures. He said the town has recorded about $15 million in insurance reimbursements and roughly $18 million in FEMA payments to date and described the receivable exercise as "manually intensive." Onczyk told the committee the reconciliation work is tied to preparation for the annual audit and that a small discrepancy in a deferred-inflow line item required an…