Linn supervisors shift FEMA funds back to courthouse repairs

Hoping to head off bureaucratic delays, Linn County supervisors this morning transferred Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding from the new juvenile justice project back to repairs at the county courthouse.

Supervisors voted to shift $335,252 from the juvenile center project over to courthouse work. Supervisor Brent Oleson voted against the move.

Last week, FEMA notified the county it would require an environmental and historical evaluation at the justice center site, 801 Third St. SW, if any agency money was to be spent there. Supervisors responded with a plan to shift the FEMA dollars – which had been shifted from the courthouse repairs on the grounds the juvenile center will replace functions done pre-flood at the courthouse - back to the courthouse renovations.

On Tuesday, supervisors learned the agency had decided its share of the project wasn't enough to trigger that requirement.

But supervisors decided to go ahead with the shift, just to be on the safe side. The move has no net effect on the county's share of funding for its flood-recovery projects.

“If it's just our money in the project, it's our project,” Supervisor Linda Langston said. “We take care of it.”

Brent Oleson cast the sole vote against the shift.

“I just think we're letting a bunch of FEMA bureaucrats push us around,” he said. He noted the move leaves the juvenile project with only a $100,000 contingency for cost overruns.