22 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • OCTOBER 2017 22 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 22 LONGISLANDPRESS.CO M • SEPTEMBER 201-----------TUTU111
By TIMOTHY BOLGER
Five years after Superstorm Sandy
devastated Long Island and much
of the tri-state area, questions linger
about how transparent federal
agencies have been while allocating
the $50 billion recovery aid
package.
In the year after the Oct. 29, 2012
hurricane hit the region, the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban
Development published monthly
reports detailing the status of the
funds, but in 2014 it transferred its
fund-tracking duties to the Federal
Emergency Management Agency,
where transparency has proven as
piecemeal as the agency’s disaster
response.
“We need to reform the system
and require more transparency to
hold FEMA accountable,” U.S. Sen.
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said two
years ago when she proposed the
Flood Insurance Transparency and
Accountability Act.
She reintroduced the measure this
month.
The bill calls for FEMA to set up
and maintain a publicly searchable
online database that “would include,
but would not be limited to”
claims data from the FEMA-run
National Flood Insurance Program.
Causing $75 billion in damage,
Sandy is currently the second costliest
Atlantic hurricane on record,
topped only by Katrina, although
the cost of Harvey, Irma and Maria
– the three most recent major
hurricanes to hit the United States
– has yet to be finalized.
Local home and business owners
continue to recover from the storm
by elevating homes and commercial
buildings. Some of the ongoing taxpayer
funded public works projects
designed to storm-harden critical
infrastructure include a nearly $1
billion project to renovate the Bay
Park Sewage Treatment Plant and the
$1.1-billion Fire Island to Montauk
Point project, which aims to mitigate
future storm damage on the South
Shore of eastern Long Island.
Three months after Sandy, Congress
approved the recovery
package and a month after that,
HUD established the Hurricane
Sandy Task Force that monitored
and publicly posted details on the
funding allocated to 19 different
agencies. In 2014, HUD partnered
with the Recovery Accountability
and Transparency Board, the agency
tasked with tracking the $700
billion Wall Street bailout, to post
detailed data each month online.
But the recovery agency declared
its job done and closed up shop the
following year.
HUD transferred its Sandy aid tracking
responsibilities to FEMA in 2014,
the same year that the inspector general
for FEMA’s parent agency, the
Department of Homeland Security,
issued a report warning that “FEMA
is at risk for mismanagement of
federal disaster funds” due to a lack
of oversight in its long-term recovery
offices that are tasked with evaluating
the need for aid. FEMA had added
one such long-term recovery office
specifically for Sandy.
FEMA implemented recommendations
designed to track performance
data and develop policies, procedures
and performance measures for
long-term recovery offices, but the
agency has not been publicly posting
the status of recovery funds with the
same frequency as HUD.
“FEMA does not regularly publish
aggregate funding information,”
said a spokesman for the agency
who noted that FEMA obligated
approximately $13.5 billion of the
Sandy aid package to agencies in
New York State, including $1.6
billion in Nassau County and
about $193 million in Suffolk
County, but did not say how much
of the overall package has yet to be
allocated.
For an example of why transparency
surrounding Sandy aid funding
is important, look no further than
Nassau County, which awarded a
$12.6 million contract to upstart
VIP Splash Waterways Recovery
Group for waterway debris removal
after the storm.
“Serious questions remain on how
a company formed in 2013 was
selected over three other companies
with more extensive experience,”
Nassau Comptroller George
Maragos said in August, when he
referred findings of an audit of the
contract to prosecutors.
No charges have been filed in connection
with the investigation.
NEWS
Mostly cloudy
on the Sandy money trail
Want to know where that $50B aid package went? Good luck.