Superintendent warns FEMA grant delays are holding up district recovery work
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Summary
Superintendent Mister Jones told the board he has been working on a FEMA grant for several years and expressed frustration that FEMA has missed internal deadlines; he plans to meet with the assistant director to seek concrete dates and avoid restarting paperwork.
Superintendent Mister Jones told the Bevel City Schools Board that ongoing FEMA grant work has been slowed by repeated missed deadlines from FEMA officials, raising the risk that the district may have to restart submissions if approvals are not issued promptly.
"It's been six years I've been working on this," Jones said, describing a meeting with FEMA just before Thanksgiving in which FEMA staff could not provide firm dates for submission or clearance of outstanding paperwork. Jones said he had been asked to sign a draft contract but declined because the draft included commitments that FEMA had not yet met.
Jones said he planned to meet with the assistant director of FEMA within a week or two to clarify timelines and identify where the delays are occurring. He said the district is concerned that continued missed deadlines could force a restart of the process and further delay recovery work funded by the grant.
The board did not take any formal action on the grant during the meeting. Jones said he would report back to the board after the meeting with FEMA and hoped to provide an update in the next month or two.
The transcript does not specify the FEMA grant's dollar value, the projects it would fund, or the original submission date; those details were not provided during the recorded remarks.