MANSFIELD, Ohio – The Richland County Commissioners approved almost $250,000 in grants for the Richland County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) at their regular meeting on Tuesday, allowing the EMA to fund general operations, volunteer coalitions and special projects.
EMA Director Mike Bailey outlined four different grants that the EMA applied for and received. Commissioners signed the initial approval of the grants on Tuesday, and then authorized the EMA to oversee and administer the grant funds throughout the year.
“That’s great you’re getting these grant dollars,” said Commissioner Gary Utt. “Any time someone else can pay, that leaves the General Fund alone.”
The largest grant awarded to the EMA is the Emergency Management Performance Grant for 2014 in the amount of $90,834. Bailey explained this is an ongoing grant that pays for 50 percent of salaries, including health care and dental, and 50 percent of day-to-day operations including supplies, equipment, phones and gasoline.
“Once that grant money is received it goes back into the General Fund,” said Bailey. “That’s something that has been ongoing for years, and is what we’re presently using right now.”
The EMA also received the Emergency Management Performance Grant for 2015 in the amount of $90,334. The grant cycle has not yet been released but will overlap the 2014 grant.
“This is a continuation of the same grant; you have to apply for it every year,” explained Bailey. “This will be used for the same categories as the first one.”
The EMA also received the 2014 State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) grant in the amount of $19,000 to establish a volunteer coalition plan. Bailey explained this grant would be used to establish ongoing dialogue and collaboration among volunteer organizations that are critical workforce resources in Richland County as well as Ashland, Crawford and Morrow counties.
“We’re creating a plan to resource and catalog all of our volunteer groups within those four counties so if we have an emergency we’ll be pulling from those groups,” said Bailey. “For example if it affects us in Richland County we may be pulling from the other three counties.”
Both the SHSP and an additional grant, the Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) for $16,000 implement plans that are in contract with Resource Solutions, a recruitment management agency preapproved by the commissioners. The EMPG Special Projects grant pulls $8,000 from the state and $8,000 from the county in-kind to create a redesign of the Emergency Operations Plan.
“There are 15 different parts of the Emergency Operations Plan – we’re working on transportation, agriculture, energy and the base plan,” said Bailey. “We took the four hardest parts to begin with and that’s what we’re capitalized on right now.”
Bailey also mentioned the 2014 Pre-Disaster Mitigation for $33,600, $8,350 of which is matched by the county in-kind. These funds will be used to implement a sustained pre-disaster natural hazard mitigation program and update the current mitigation plan that is due to expire in January 2017.
“This is a five-year cycle for updating and should take us into 2022 until our next update,” said Bailey.
Commissioner Marilyn John pointed out that Pre-Disaster Mitigation covers a wide range of calamities, not just natural disasters. She questioned whether Pre-Disaster Mitigation funds would cover EMA agencies that have now been tasked with working with each of the school systems to put together all-hazards safety plans, but Bailey was unsure whether they would be covered.
“When this came from the state it didn’t have any grant dollars or money attached to it to work on those plans, and you have to work with (schools) individually,” said John. “It’s another unfunded mandate.”
Bailey explained the University of Findlay would visit each school district in Richland County with an individualized two-day training plan, with school administrators as well as law enforcement and fire safety officials required to attend the training. Each school district will then be required to create a safety plan to be turned in to the state on an annual basis.
“This is a requirement from the State Board of Education, so Homeland Security has asked EMA to be a part of that planning process to make sure that happens,” said Bailey.
Bailey noted he would have preferred to have one countywide training session with all school department heads, law enforcement and fire departments but it is required that each school district go through training individually. John questioned the use of taxpayers’ dollars to hold separate training sessions for each school.
“I at least as one commissioner am very concerned with tax dollars being spent frivolously, and I would like a greater understanding of why they are insisting on teaching this separately to all of these different school districts because that is taking up your time and school administrators’ time,” said John to Bailey. “Obviously we’re all concerned with child safety, that’s never a question, however lets be reasonable with how it’s implemented.”
