County comes up clean in ice storm audit

After an audit found no improper spending, Greene County was informed it will not have to pay back the $10.6 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds it used during the January 2007 ice storm.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security sanctioned audit - the results of which were released to county and state officials on July 22 and July 25 respectively - examined nine projects totaling $9.7 million, about 96 percent of Greene County's FEMA award, according to a Greene County news release.

Federal auditors reviewed the time period between Jan. 12, 2007, and July 14, 2008, when the county claimed $10 million in direct program costs, the release said.

The audit, performed from Dec. 2009 to June 2010, examined the county's records for FEMA claims, which included receipts, policies, procedures, staff interviews and individual photographs of the destruction caused, according to the release.

“Our mantra during the ice storm was ‘document, document, document,’” Greene County Presiding Commissioner Dave Coonrod said in the release. “We had heard about other communities that failed to document their expenses and ended up owing large amounts of money to FEMA, after the fact. We didn’t want that to happen to us.”

FEMA is a subset of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Greene County audit results can be found here.
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