News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Putnam County will receive some $300,000 as a result of FEMA increasing its natural disaster reimbursement funding.
Mayor Randy Porter said TEMA notified the county that the federal government is increasing its reimbursement percentage for counties that responded to disasters.
“We’ve had of course the 2020 tornado and the 2015 ice storm that the county was out several million dollars on, and they’ve changed the reimbursement from 75 percent to 90 percent, which is going to mean some extra dollars for us,” Porter said.
Porter said previously, the reimbursement was broken down as 75 percent federal, 12.5 percent state and 12.5 percent local. The recent changes bring the state and local matches to five percent.
“They just made a change that they were going to change the amount of money that they put back out on the reimbursement for the cleanup and response to the storms. We were pleasantly surprised,” Porter said. “It will help the county out.”
Porter said final details on spending and distribution has not been shared to the county. Porter said the state anticipates the funding to come down after a few months.
“All we know is they would use all the paperwork we’ve already filled out and sent in where they reimbursed us,” Porter said. “All they’re going to do is figure out what the difference is that they would owe us with this new percentage.”
Porter said the county has already received its full payment for the ice storm. The only cost that hasn’t been reimbursed from the tornado is the construction of the new Veterans Museum and Service Office.
