Aucoin told commissioners that they would need to document specific equipment, the name of the operator, timesheets for the particular work, the maintenance schedule, a map of the roads, and the number of miles of county roads. The latter two were easy to provide; the county has around 180 miles of county roads that have gravel and slightly over 200 miles that don't. They also needed a pay policy including overtime, a normal work schedule, and places where gravel was bladed off. In addition, they needed to document what they did to a road at a specific time.
The county did not qualify for snow removal funds since they only got their normal 6" of snow during the snowstorm; it took 16" of snow or more to qualify. Aucoin offered to allow the county money for roads damaged by the storm and to allow the county to document 20% of the items listed above. However, commissioners huddled up with Kobbe and Owens and Fletchall. When they returned, they told Aucoin that they could not come up with even 20% of that documentation and turned down the money.
Commissioner Dennis Gabbert said that the problem that the county has is that the rules were constantly changing, noting that they had never had to document that stuff before to get FEMA money. "Our people spent hours of their time putting together the documentation and then all of a sudden, we find out that the rules have changed," he said. Ruckman said that it was best for the county to cut their losses and move on while Fletchall said that the payback from that was so minimal that it was not worth it. "If FEMA is not going to allow us anything, then why did we get declared a disaster area in the first place," asked Emergency Management Director Pat Kobbe. Kobbe noted that they had done the same thing to Andrew County as well.
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