On Friday of last week the Newark Star-Ledger ran the story "FEMA warned Christie administration that AshBritt contract could jeopardize federal funding". The article stated that a letter was send to Governor Christie in February, by U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, advising him that FEMA officials had contacted his office to advise, that due to the Governor's use of a "piggybacked" no-bid contract to hire AshBritt Inc. for debris removal after Hurricane Sandy, the State and therefore local municipalities, were in jeopardy of losing federal reimbursement funds due to the fact that AshBritt may have overcharged for there services. FEMA found that towns that did not use Ashbritt for their clean-up needs, struck better deals with local debris removal firms than if the would have used Ashbritt, thus saving US taxpayer money.
For people living in the communities affected by Hurricane Sandy, like Middletown, this could be huge problem if they "piggybacked" onto the State's deal to used Ashbritt for their clean-up needs after the storm.
Many of these towns are expecting to be reimbursed up to 75% of the cost for debris removal and are planning this year's budgets around this figure. Middletown for example just introduced its budget and is expecting to be reimbursed upwards of $3 million over the next couple of years from FEMA for storm related clean-up costs.
We are learning now however, that Middletown and other towns may not see reimbursements upwards of 75%, it could be far less, which in turn would wreak havoc with tax levys sometime this year and later down the road.
8 comments:
The Star Ledger today reports Middletown has already received 2.3 million from FEMA. Front page story that continues on page 4 with FEMA Disbursement details chart.
Guess the devil may be in the details of future reports of disbursements to affected towns.
Anon 5:37,
I haven't seen a hard copy of the Star-Ledger today so I can't comment on whether or not Middletown has received and FEMA reimbursement funds to date. I do know that as of this past Thursday no funds were received.
No mention was made during Middletown's budget introduction other than Township CFO sating that the town was expecting 75% - 90% reimbursement from FEMA.
I'll look for a copy of the story tomorrow seeing how there is no article appearing online about this currently.
Mike, Was reading the information from the the HARD copy when I sent you that info !
I happened to be the recipient of debris removal from both the Township PW Dept. and Ashbritt. The PW Dept. did a far better job of it.
PW Dept. - did an efficient job, the area was left broom clean on the other hand after Ashbritt's pickup I was raking, sweeping and bagging remnants of debris which were left behind after the bagged debris was ripped open by "the claw". There was also some property damage from the claw; gouges of lawn and dirt removed.
The Star Ledger stated that"Middletown had received 2.3 million dollars in reimbursements as of March 15,2013" in Tuesday's,April 2nd morning edition. Nine other towns had also received money. Those are the facts as reported.
Why would Middletown hide those facts from the people?
Actually, the article didn't say anything about Middletown. I read the article this morning.
There was a chart on page 4 that listed Middletown as receiving being reimbursed $2.3M as of 3/15/13.
To answer your question, assuming the chart was correct, I have no idea why Middletown would wnat to hide the facts. All I know is that when the township introduced its budget last week on 3/28/13 they made no mention of it and I saw no line item for it in the propsed budget document.
If they have received the reimbursement from FEMA great! I'm very happy. If not, then we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Hopefully, Middletown recieves its full reimbursement, which should be about another $1M or so on top of the $2.3M alledgedly already been received.
Mike,
Why would the report from FEMA make a statement (that chart is a statement as part of the content of the article) that the reimbursements FEMA has made were not factual? Why ?
Do you give more credibility to this TC with the problems it consistently exhibits with regard to "open public government" ? They would lock the doors to town hall on meeting nights if they could get away with it.
Allegedly my foot ! You must be kidding !
Anon 2:01,
I'm not giving any undue credibility to anyone, not FEMA and not Middletown. I don't know who is right or who is trying to hide anything. That chart doesn't look like it was an official chart put together by FEMA IMHO. I think it was just graphic put together by the Star-Ledger staff to give a visual to what the reporter had been told, for information that didn't make it into the story.
Maybe Middletown was reimbursed or maybe Middletown is still waiting to be reimbursed the $2.3M stated on the chart, I don't know. all I know is that there was no mention of receiving funds on 3/28 during the introduction of Middletown's budget or is there any mention of the reimbursement in the proposed budget document itself.
And actually may earlier statement was wrong. Middletown will be expecting much, much more than an additional $1M from FEMA. Middletown has spent nearly $14M on storm clean-up. I was thinking it was only ~$4M.
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