Tallahassee City Commission will consider creating storm response fund

After the tornadoes spawned by the May 10 storms and amid what’s predicted to be a brutal hurricane season, the City of Tallahassee now is looking into setting up its own storm response fund.

City commissioners will be meeting June 19 for one of several budget workshops. According to the agenda, they won’t be talking only about the $50 million the city has poured into recovery, but also the idea of future financial preparation.

The agenda item briefly mentions that the city “must ensure (that) financial capacity exists to respond and protect citizen life and property.”

The idea behind the proposed fund is to reduce strain on the city’s general fund, though it’s unclear for now how the storm fund would work in practice and how it would be paid for.

Where are the FEMA funds?

Also still unclear is the status of payments from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

The process for reimbursement is a multi-step process:

From the moment a natural disaster strikes, FEMA and local officials conduct preliminary damage assessment, effects on individuals and public facilities and the types of federal assistance needed.

From there, the information is passed off to the state’s governor, who makes a disaster declaration request to the president. It’s not known whether Gov. Ron DeSantis has made that request for the May 10 storm damage; a request for information is pending with his office.

Moreover, FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund could run out of money by August, according to their monthly fund reports.

Though it could activate its Immediate Needs Funding program starting in July, which means they will only fund major disaster efforts, which would “deprioritize” other obligations. And that means Tallahassee aid could get put on the back burner.

It won’t be the first time the city has had to wait for FEMA funding. According to the workshop agenda, the city is still out nearly $4.5 million in FEMA funds for reimbursements for Hurricanes Hermine, Irma and Michael.

If you go

The Tallahassee City Budget Workshop will begin at 1 pm in City Hall, 300 S. Adams St.