By Malcolm Butler
During Tuesday night’s Lincoln Parish Police Jury meeting, Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Kip Franklin provided a report on Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding that Lincoln Parish has been awarded following multiple disasters, including Hurricane Laura in 2020 and the Ruston tornado in 2019.
Following the tornado, preliminary damage assessments showed a total of damages to the parish, city and Louisiana Tech that exceeded $10 million dollars. FEMA Public Assistance helped put these initial damages back in order.
Over a year later, the parish was allocated additional hazard mitigation funding for the tornado totaling $2,952,908 in Federal dollars with a 75%-25% cost share between federal dollars and local dollars. The parish share would amount to an additional $984,302 to receive the full benefit of the federal dollars.
During Franklin’s report at Tuesday night’s meeting, police juror Teresa Wyatt commented that she felt the funds had been given to the city and Louisiana Tech instead of being directed towards the Lincoln Parish Fire District.
“Approximately three years ago, the police jury received three million dollars,” said Wyatt. “The prior administration took it upon themselves to channel the money towards Ruston Fire Department and Louisiana Tech Fire Department. They knew that the parish fire department was inferior. So, because they work for the parish, why didn’t they try to put into the (parish) fire department?”
Franklin responded with an explanation.
“This money can’t be used for those types of projects,” Franklin said. “It can only be used for allowable projects that FEMA approves. Not just anything we pull out of the air. It can’t be used to build a fire station. It can’t be used to pay for ambulance or rescue services.”
In a Thursday afternoon meeting with Ruston Daily Leader and Lincoln Parish Journal reporters, Franklin went into further details of how the federal hazard mitigation process works in regard to the projects and reimbursements.
He also stated that very early on in the process, discussions had taken place over whether some of the funds could be used to build a new fire station that would replace Ruston Fire Station No. 2, but that Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) and FEMA officials clarified that was not an allowable project.
In an August 21, 2020, meeting involving officials from Lincoln Parish, City of Ruston, Louisiana Tech and the GOHSEP officials, Franklin said numerous subjects were discussed, including what projects were considered allowable by FEMA standards for the allocated funds.
“At the time FEMA told us that we couldn’t use any type of hazard mitigation money to build a fire station,” said Franklin. “At that point they clarified that FEMA dollars could not be used for brick and mortar of any sort.”
Franklin said another main decision that came out of that meeting was to allow the city of Ruston to serve as the primary applicant on behalf of the parish – this decision was based on the recommendation by the governor’s office in an Aug. 17, 2020, letter to Franklin and the a recommendation by Franklin to then LPPJ President Joe Henderson.
“When the (August 17, 2020) letter came from GOHSEP on behalf of the Governor and it said they highly encourage the parish to engage the city of Ruston and Louisiana Tech … That’s why we got a presidential declaration to begin with. That’s why we got this hazard mitigation money because of the (cost of) damages to Ruston and Tech.
“If it had been left to just damages within the parish alone and Claiborne Electric and other applicants, we would have not met the financial threshold that we needed to meet to get public assistance or hazard mitigation money.”
Franklin believes that is one reason some people are confused over the allocated funds and where and how they can be spent. And ultimately who is in control of those allocated funds.
“That doesn’t mean the city gets the money and the parish doesn’t get any, but that’s what some people think,” said Franklin. “Some people think there is $3 million sitting in the bank somewhere.”
The decision to have the city serve as the applicant for the parish was also ratified by the Lincoln Parish Police Jury in a Sept. 8, 2020, meeting me by a vote of 9-2.
Fast forward to today. None of the almost $3M federal dollars that was allocated for the parish has been spent yet as the list of projects submitted to FEMA is still pending approval. FEMA will not approve any type of reimbursement for any project that has started prior to approval.
Franklin provided a list of proposed projects that were sent to FEMA for approval. The total amount listed is the total for each projects and the entities will be reimbursed 75 percent of the total per the FEMA agreement once/if the project is approved and ultimately completed.
- City of Ruston Operations Center – hardening project ($1,000,000)
- City of Ruston Generator Projects ($900,000)
- Lincoln Parish Police Jury Generators ($470,545)
- Lincoln Parish School Board Generators ($600,000)
- Louisiana Tech Generators ($600,000)
- Grambling State Generators ($300,000)
- Choudrant Generators ($66,666)
According to Franklin, both the city of Grambling and Dubach chose not to participate due to lack of sufficient funds to pay for the projects on the front end. He provided a copy of a letter from Grambling Mayor Edward R. Jones dated Nov. 24, 2020, stating that it would not participate due to lack “of adequate upfront funding to purchase a generator.”
“It’s a federal allocation,” said Franklin. “It’s a promise that you will get this money and you can use it for an approved project, but (the entity) has to put its full money (for a project) up front. It’s why we have some trouble with hazard mitigation projects because smaller entities don’t have the money up front. But the allocation was given to the entire parish.”
Franklin so he was unsure when final approval would be received from FEMA for the projects to move forward.
