by Andrew Stein March 1, 2013 vtdigger.org A Federal Emergency Management Agency official said on Friday that the agency will put off a decision about how much it is willing to pay for the rebuilding of the Waterbury State Office Complex ‘ indefinitely.
In early January, FEMA told VTDigger that it hoped to provide the state with funding figures by the beginning of February. Then, the agency moved that date back to the end of the month.
FEMA and the state are hung up on whether the state meets certain eligibility requirements.
The Waterbury State Office Complex, two months after Tropical Storm Irene flooded the facility. Photo by Josh Larkin
David Mace, an agency spokesman, said: ‘ There are still issues that FEMA and the state have to resolve before we can arrive at a level of funding. At this point we’ re not setting a target date for resolving these issues, we’ re just going to commit to working as hard as we can with the state to reach the most advantageous solution that we can.’
Dave Rappaport, Vermont’ s Irene recovery chief, said the Shumlin administration is working closely with FEMA, but much of the process is out of the state’ s control.
‘ The truth is I’ m not sure any of us on the state side have the depth of understanding to be able to describe it in a way that’ s fully accurate,’ he said about FEMA’ s decision to prologue a determination. ‘ It has to do with eligibility ‘ what actually ends up being counted as damage that is reimbursable.’
Since Tropical Storm Irene inundated the office complex in August 2011, the state has scrambled to find space for about 1,500 state employees with the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and the Agency of Human Services. At the end of November, lawmakers approved a design for a $124.66 million facility to house roughly 900 Agency of Human Services employees.
The state has been negotiating with FEMA and providing detailed damage estimates for more than a year on the critical issue of the reimbursement amount. Millions of dollars hang in the balance, and any amount not provided by FEMA or insurance will be picked up by the state for the restoration and construction at the historic state office complex.
The Shumlin administration has said it would seek $75 million in bonding for the project.