Lawmaker touts $26.7 million FEMA school award and regional infrastructure funding for Perry County

Lawmaker said the state secured a $26,700,000 FEMA award to rebuild Robinson Elementary, telling the court the funding was routed "through emergency management" and arrived on the final night of the legislative session. The speaker said the award would support replacing the school building in Illinois (the location named in the transcript) and that local education leaders had been told the funding should proceed.

The announcement came alongside a series of infrastructure and economic-development updates. Agency official said a separate check will help expand the local airport runway from about 5,500 feet toward 7,000 feet, a change officials said would allow larger aircraft to use the field and support economic development. "When we go out to 7,000 feet, we're talking about just about any aircraft that's made to land them," the speaker said, adding that the airport had served as an emergency hub during recent flood rescues.

Clerk and lawmakers also discussed increased state blacktop funding for county roads and singled out Moore Boulevard as a high-priority corridor, noting roughly $300,000 toward that section. Clerk explained the state uses a grading system to score candidate roads and that the county submits lists rather than selecting roads unilaterally.

On recreation and tourism, Lawmaker described funding for Backroads Appalachia—"$1,000,000 that we funded that came from our district"—and additional allocations tied to the First Frontier Trail System. The speaker and others discussed a multi-county trail authority meant to knit together campgrounds and trailheads; the trail authority was described primarily as an economic-development tool rather than only a recreation program. "The goal of the trail system is to join all the counties together," Lawmaker said, noting permit sales and early campground revenue in other counties.

Speakers framed these investments as part of a broader push to grow outdoor and event tourism in the county. Clerk cited recent events and estimated local returns: the GNCC motorcycle event was estimated to have generated about $550,000 for the region, and a side-by-side rally was estimated to have returned about $132,000 to Perry County during a single-day event. Speakers said they were planning more multi-day events, expecting larger visitor counts and additional local spending.

The court’s discussion also referenced private redevelopment projects and said lawmakers had secured matching state funds to encourage local investment. Lawmakers and county officials framed the package as a combination of FEMA emergency school funding, state transportation and development dollars, and targeted tourism and trail investments intended to shift local economic activity toward outside visitors.

Officials did not provide formal implementation timelines for each project during the meeting. Several speakers noted numbers (for example, recurring trail-authority funding described as "1.5 per year") while also saying some figures might be approximate. The court did not take formal votes tied to the funding announcements during the session; those were presented as updates and commitments from visiting officials.

The county’s next procedural steps, according to speakers, include advancing road projects through the state grading process and moving design and procurement forward for airport and marina improvements as funding and permits allow.