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HARTINGTON – A county error resulted in the loss of more than $200,000 in federal reimbursement funds.
Two projects — a bridge and a road near Bow Valley — were submitted incorrectly to be reimbursed in full from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The bridge project was submitted as a road project and the road project was submitted as a bridge project “It went through the whole system backwards like that,” said Carla Schmidt, the county’s road superintendent, at last week’s Cedar County Board of Commissioners meeting.
The error wasn’t realized by Schmidt, Kevin Garvin, the county emergency manager, or the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). Through an audit, the mistake was realized and NEMA advised to put both the road and bridge projects together and re-submit it to FEMA.
“I went through all that work again, and submitted it again,” Schmidt said. “It got past NEMA but FEMA said, ‘You can’t do that.’ . . . Long story short, we’re going to be short a couple hundred thousand dollars on reimbursement on a project.”
In particular, the bridge project was capped at $183,000, when it cost almost $400,00 to fix, she said.
Although the county won’t be getting the full amount due to the error, the two projects will be reimbursed through NEMA and FEMA at about $222,000.
The project stemmed from major flooding damage incurred from a “bomb cyclone” storm in 2019 which caused both approaches to the bridge to be washed out, Schmidt said.
“At this point, it’s water under the bridge,” said County Clerk Jessica Schmit. At its last meeting, commissioners also discussed an option to install permanent, holiday LED lights on the exterior of the courthouse.
Clerk Schmit said she received a quote of $8,500 from Get Lit, a national company with an installer based in Sioux City, Iowa, for permanent lighting around the front facade of the courthouse. The company also installed the permanent lights on the new Security Bank building in Hartington, she said.
The new system will plug into the courthouse Internet system and can be run from a mobile phone. There are many different color options to choose from and the courthouse could light up different colors for different occasions, even to reflect the two high schools’ color schemes, she said.
The quote received recently includes a price break. Costs will go up if they wait too long, Clerk Schmit said.
“Talk about it. Think about it, but not too long,” said Chairman Dave McGregor.
