PARIS – Officials from towns, school districts, nonprofit organizations and independent water and sewer plants are invited to attend a special meeting this morning to learn how to apply for federal snow removal reimbursements.
Record snowfall amounts over Feb. 10 an 11 have triggered a presidential emergency declaration, according to Dan Schorr, director of the Oxford County Emergency Management Agency. In a conversation March 16, Schorr said the declaration means municipalities and other organizations may receive reimbursements for related snow removal costs from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We’re not going to know how much the towns are getting back for months and months and months,” Schorr said, explaining that the reimbursement process is lengthy.
The meeting begins at 10 a.m. at the Paris Fire Station. A FEMA representative will be on hand.
In a news release, Schorr stated that FEMA will reimburse 75 percent of eligible costs associated with equipment, contracts and personnel overtime related to emergency services provided over a 48-hour period. “These are the critical hours when work crews clear snow from emergency routes and roads to critical facilities to permit passage of emergency vehicles,” he wrote.
Any assistance is likely to be welcome by towns, school districts and others struggling to stay within their winter budgets.
On Friday, Norway Town Manager David Holt said the town has been hard hit by the winter weather onslaught. “As of today, we’ve spent 98 percent of our overtime budget,” he said.
As of Friday, $36,238 of Norway’s $37,000 overtime budget had been spent. The town also had spent 117 percent of its $65,000 budget for salt and liquid calcium. Salt alone has cost $75,800 so far this year, Holt said. Liquid calcium has cost $1,960.
The budget “is and will continue to go over,” Holt said. “We’re apt to have a lot of flooding and mud trouble, too.”
In Paris, bookkeeper Elisa Whiteley said the town has $265 left in the $2,500 sand budget. A total of $10,081 remains in the $40,000 salt budget. Money also was in the equipment rental account, but the $15,000 vehicle gas account was overdrawn by $2,767.
The biggest problem for Paris, Whiteley said, is that “there’s no place left to haul snow.”
Schorr said the FEMA provides aid to communities after record snowfalls. According to his records, after heavy snowfall Dec. 6-7 in 2003, a total of $151,785 in emergency management money was distributed throughout Oxford County. In 2001, a total of $380,211 came through after a blizzard.
Comments are no longer available on this story