North Hempstead Disputes Claims They Owe FEMA $9.9 Million

The Town of North Hempstead is disputing an audit by the Office of the Inspector General that says FEMA should take back $9.9 million of the $36.6 million awarded to the Town for Hurricane Sandy damages.

Despite the OIG claims, the Town says nearly half of the money the OIG looks to recover was never even received by North Hempstead.

Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth said the audit, which took a look at the handling of FEMA disaster recovery funding following 2012’s Superstorm Sandy under the previous administration, is “deeply flawed” and no money should be recovered. “We believe that FEMA will recognize that we followed procedures and were careful custodians of the federal disaster relief funds,” she said in a press release.

Out of the more than $36.6 million in FEMA funding the Town received for 31 projects, the OIG questioned procurement procedures for:

$4.8 in contracts for debris removal

• The OIG claims the debris removal "did not meet federal standards” and were not under “emergency guidelines to remove.”
• In response to this claim, Bosworth said, “Debris removal was an emergency after Sandy and we think that FEMA will agree, even if auditors think that our Town residents should have been driving around fallen trees and debris for months following the hurricane.”
• The Town says the contract pricing for debris removal was approved by FEMA and to the extent the Town did not use sealed bids, these emergency contracts were authorized under New York State law. “And post Sandy clean-up was certainly an emergency,” Bosworth said.

$3.2 million for “costs claimed twice”

• According to the Town, there is no $3.2 million payment to recover. Town says the OIG admitted that the supposed $3.2 million duplicate payment was already “resolved and closed.”
• New York State Office of Emergency Management Oversight responded to this claim and said the audit leaves the impression that the Town actually received these funds from FEMA. The duplication error, NYS says, was corrected during the reconciliation process and the Town was never reimbursed.
• NYS says the "OIG should correct the misstatements in the report indicating these funds as still being owed to FEMA."

$562,387 for “unsupported costs”

• These “unsupported” funds were from records maintained by employees of the Town’s Solid Waste Management Authority (SWMA). Regarding the claims, the Town stated that it “provided a spreadsheet summary and has records to show GPS location and fuel use by SWMA employees during the emergency clean-up period.”

$405,158 for costs that were “paid by insurance”

• The Town said the costs were not paid by FEMA and was instead paid out as an insurance claim by the Town’s insurer.

The NYS Office of EMO released the following statement in response to the OIG report: “This finding is unsupported as it ignores: 1) the exigent circumstances in which the firms operated; 2) the fact that two firms were competitively procured; and 3) that FEMA has already determined all these costs to be reasonable.”

The Town also reached out to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer’s office to make him aware of the audit.

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