City Council weighs voluntary FEMA buyout program, directs staff to collect homeowner data

The Rolling Hills Estates City Council on Tuesday received a presentation on voluntary property buyouts administered by the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) and funded in part through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, and directed staff to work with Cal OES to collect homeowner data and run preliminary cost–benefit checks.

The discussion followed a presentation by Samantha Crew, the city’s management analyst, and Robin Fenig, assistant director for hazard mitigation at Cal OES. Fenig laid out how reimbursement normally works under HMGP, including FEMA’s 75% federal share of appraised home value and eligible expenses, and noted a recent return to a higher federal discount rate that reduces the present value of long-term benefits used in FEMA’s benefit–cost analysis.

“This change effectively reduces the calculated value of future benefit in the benefit cost analysis,” Fenig said, describing how the Office of Management and Budget’s discount‑rate change from about 3.1% back to 7% makes many buyout projects harder to meet FEMA’s cost‑effectiveness threshold. She added that the state and federal…