Community leaders met Wednesday for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hazard mitigation meeting spearheaded by the Meramec Regional Planning Committee (MRPC). At the meeting were representatives from both county and city governments, local law enforcement, the local fire department, and local school districts.
The purpose of the meeting was largely to outline the framework of what is considered to be hazard mitigation in order to secure federal funds and what MRPC needs from the county, the city, and each of the schools.
The county is responsible for a portion of the cost which is split into two categories.
“The two primary things from the county, the city and each of the school districts—the FEMA data questionnaire, and in-kind match forms,” said MRPC Environmental Programs Specialist Patrick Stites in a follow-up email to meeting attendees.
In-kind match is the personnel and travel cost of everyone, except elected officials. Anyone who spends time doing any of the following is billed at the federal volunteer rate of $25.96 an hour and $0.585 per mile for mileage: reviewing the previous plan to provide input, gathering information for questionnaires, providing information to elected officials about the plan, attending meetings related to the plan, preparing adoption resolutions as well as reviewing updated drafts.
The goal is to document at least $3,000 worth of volunteer time for the in-kind match. If that sum is not reached, the difference must be made up by the county in cash.
The other piece of the puzzle is the aforementioned FEMA data collection questionnaire that needs to be filled out by the county, the city and each school district in the county.
Stites told attendees that they expect the process of completing the plan to include two more meetings over the course of the next year. The next meeting is scheduled for April 5 at 1 p.m.
