County staff reports $52M received from FEMA/GEMA and closes NRCS, IGSA projects

County staff reported on disaster‑recovery reimbursements and grant closeouts during the morning session. Emergency‑management and engineering staff told the commission the county has received about $52 million in FEMA/GEMA reimbursements to date and is awaiting roughly $27 million more in obligated funds, bringing the expected total in the neighborhood of $79–80 million.

Staff explained the process: FEMA first obligates funds at the federal level; the obligated amounts then pass through the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMA) before the county receives payment. County staff cautioned that GEMA processing can add several weeks to payments once FEMA obligates projects and noted that GEMA’s available pool of funds appears constrained.

Engineering staff closed two significant projects: an Intergovernmental Support Agreement (IGSA) resurfacing contract with Fort Gordon (construction contract amount $3,200,000), for which Columbia County receives an 8% administrative fee to manage procurement and oversight; staff reported that fee at $259,349.15. Separately, staff presented the closing report for an NRCS Emergency Watershed Protection Program grant deployed after Hurricane Helene: the county completed work on 53 stream reaches (70,838 linear feet) and reported total reimbursement of about $11,700,000, of which approximately $11.6 million was paid to the contractor Ceres and $84,882.69 covered county administrative costs.

Commissioners asked follow‑up questions about timing and amounts; emergency‑management staff (Sean/representative) said the largest pending obligation is a roughly $16–17 million item awaiting higher‑level review and that county staff is monitoring both FEMA obligations and the subsequent payment timeline through GEMA.

The board took no separate vote on these reports; staff offered them for review and to inform procurement and budgeting going forward.