State’s Irene recovery fund winding down major activity, but applications still being accepted and processed

by Nat Rudarakanchana April 17, 2013 vtdigger.org The Vermont Long-Term Disaster Recovery Group, a nonprofit which administers disaster relief funds, is gradually decelerating its disaster relief efforts as more Irene victims find themselves in happier circumstances.
The nonprofit, which raises and spends money through the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund, is well known for its Vermont Strong license plate campaign. To date, it has raised about $7.6 million of its initial $10 million target, through that stream as well as others.
Nonprofit board chair David Coates told VTDigger the $7.6 million should be enough for the group’ s caseload, which shrank from an anticipated 800 cases to about 600 cases. The fund acts as the station of last resort for Irene victims who can’ t find help from state, federal or other aid agencies.
Some of Vermont’ s nine local recovery committees, made of volunteer and community groups, local government officials, and private individuals, like the ReBuild Waterbury and Upper Valley Strong committees, have signaled that they’ ll become mostly inactive, as the Valley News reported last month.
‘ Some of the local committees, they’ ve closed up shop, because they said they’ ve had no more cases,’ said Coates. ‘ There’ s no sense in keeping their infrastructure up and running. They’ re going into hibernation. They’ re still organizations, but won’ t be as active.’
Only two of the nine committees are currently inactive, so far as the nonprofit’ s secretary Chris Graff is aware.
Coates told VTDigger that his organization hopes to resolve most of the 266 ongoing cases by the second anniversary of Irene, this coming August. After that, however, the group will still be open for cases. It’ s allocated $2.9 million of its $7.6 million raised so far.
‘ No matter when the case comes in, we’ ll take care of it,’ said Coates.
In the meantime, however, the group’ s executive director Betsy Ide, daughter of Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Rob Ide, will be replaced by a part-time director in the near future. Without much fundraising work left to do, said Coates, it’ s likely there’ ll be less work for her successor.
Rob Ide told VTDigger that about 37,100 plates have been sold so far. For each of the plates, which cost $25, $5 goes to the DMV, to cover production costs, with $18 to the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund and $2 to the Vermont Foodbank.
Graff said the license plate sales have raised about $658,000 so far for the fund. The 37,100 plates sold falls short of the initial objective of selling about 50,000 plates; Coates says he’ d be very happy if 40,000 plates were sold.
Rob Ide called the 50,000 target, which translates to $1 million in total for the disaster relief fund, a figure which many stakeholders thought ‘ ambitious’ at the time.
‘ We’ d still like to reach that goal, but obviously every retail product has a shelf life,’ Ide told VTDigger. ‘ Sales of this plate have slowed down quite a bit over the last couple months.’
These Vermont Strong license plates were subject to some political controversy in May 2012, when Gov. Peter Shumlin mistakenly told reporters that 25,000 had been sold, when in fact only 7,800 had been.
Even as the disaster recovery group loses its executive director, with fewer license plate sales and some of its local partners closing, Coates says they’ re prepared for the long haul. The nonprofit is chartered to remain organized for perpetuity, in order to deal with the next natural disaster to come along.
‘ We’ re going to be here until it’ s over, and we’ re going to be here for the next one,’ said Graff, the body’ s secretary. ‘ The neat thing is that now we have a system and structure in place. Heaven forbid another disaster like Irene, but if there is one, we’ ll be ready.’