XPost: alt.government.employees, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns XPost: sac.politics, alt.society.liberalism
https://nypost.com/2025/02/11/us-news/femas-troubling-history-of- misspending-taxpayers-cash/
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has mismanaged tens of billions of dollars over the years, according to numerous government reports into its spending.
The government agency�s response to COVID, hurricanes, floods and housing migrants have all come under fire for being wasteful and going largely unchecked � as the newly created Department of Government Efficiency
(DOGE) has been sent in to analyze its spending.
The most recent audit of the embattled disaster response agency claimed it mismanaged nearly $10 billion during the COVID pandemic between 2020 and
2023.
FEMA even approved a grant of $1.1 billion despite it only being supported
by only a single piece of paper with no itemized costs, the Jan. 30 audit
by the Department of Homeland Security�s Office of the Inspector General
found.
The request was also �not prepared by a licensed professional engineer or cost-estimating professional,� according to the 36-page report.
The Trump administration has called for a complete overhaul of FEMA, which
has a slated budget of $65 billion for fiscal year 2025.
During the pandemic, $1.5 billion was doled out �for one state�s medical staffing� without the proper vetting and �could have been put to better
use for other disasters,� the January audit found.
�These issues occurred due to the unprecedented circumstances surrounding
the COVID-19 pandemic and FEMA not following established requirements when delivering public assistance funding,� said the report, which did not name
the states which received the FEMA pandemic payments.
It also cited $8.1 billion distributed by FEMA which are �costs that have
yet to be determined allowable,� according to the report.
A leading FEMA critic said there is �no doubt� the agency made a mess of
COVID disaster relief.
�What we sometimes fail to remember is that in the aftermath of a disaster there are victims, and this bureaucracy has just continued to re-victimize those victims,� said Garret Graves, a former Republican Congressman from Louisiana who is a favorite to lead the agency � a job he told The Post
Monday he does not want.
�I appreciate the gesture, but it�s such a dysfunctional bureaucracy that
I don�t think I would last a month,� he said, adding that he supports
Musk�s plans to streamline the agency.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in an interview with CNN
Sunday she is in favor of getting rid of FEMA �the way it exists today.�
On Monday, Musk announced DOGE �just discovered� FEMA doled out $59
million to house migrants in luxury hotels in New York City.
https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/doge-team- discovered-fema-sent-
98271957_b296a6.jpg?resize=744,417&quality=75&strip=all
Elon Musk said his Department of Government Efficiency found that FEMA
sent out millions in cash to house migrants in New York City hotels,
despite President Trump�s order to overhaul the federal disaster response agency.
@elonmusk/X
�Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to
the President�s executive order,� Musk wrote in an X post.
On Tuersday, four FEMA employees were fired over the payment including the Chief Financial Officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist,
according to the Department of Homeland Security. A request was also made
to send the money back.
FEMA has handed out more than $1.4 billion in housing and aid for migrants
over the last two years, according to earlier audits.
A 2023 report by the DHS Office of the Inspector General investigated $110 million in humanitarian relief funds given to local organizations. It
concluded those organizations didn�t use the funds in the way they were required to, couldn�t provide required receipts or documentation and that
some of the aid went to illegal migrants.
In October last year Alejandro Mayorkas, then secretary of Homeland
Security, came under fire when he said FEMA did not have enough money to
make it through the Atlantic hurricane season after Hurricane Helene
surged through southeastern states, followed days later by hurricane
Milton hitting Florida, causing up to $60 billion in damage.
In the midst of the back-to-back hurricanes an additional $20 billion in
funds were approved for FEMA by Congress. The agency spent $9 billion of
that money in a little over a week, according to CNN.
In a letter to Mayorkas criticizing the response to the Helene and Milton disasters, Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed: �FEMA has wasted
taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds and left other federal, state and
local responders without deployment orders on the ground.�
The letter cited �whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management
functions� as its sources.
An August 2024 audit of the agency found it wasted $7 billion in
�unliquidated funds that could potentially be returned to the Disaster
Relief Fund� because FEMA agents did not follow the proper processes.
�Also, federal regulations and FEMA guidance provide no incentive to close
out grants in a timely manner or consequences for failure to do so,� said
the summer 2024 audit, meaning money was in the accounts of states who did
not need it.
�Without improved oversight and stronger policies, billions of dollars of unliquidated funds that could otherwise be returned�will remain obligated
to state, territorial, tribal or local governments and unavailable for use
in providing relief in connection with current disasters,� the audit said.
And the waste doesn�t end there, as the report said it had also �reviewed
a sample of 20 other grants and identified approximately $32.8 billion in improper payments.�
FEMA�s lack of transparency and spending waste was previously documented
by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR) in 2017.
The congressional committee found the agency wasted millions in the
purchase of mobile homes for temporarily displaced victims of floods and hurricanes.
The homes cost up to $150,000 each to build and maintain for a year and a
half. But after their use, the agency typically gave them away or sold
them, the committee found.
FEMA deactivated 4,350 such homes after a flood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
in 2016, according to the committee.
FEMA was established in an executive order by former president Jimmy
Carter in 1979.
The agency works with counterpart emergency management organizations in
state and local governments. It also provides grants to victims of natural disasters, to help them with temporary housing, funeral and medical
expenses.
--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.
The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and
eradicated.
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
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