Lee school district gets update on hurricane damage funds
The School District of Lee County continues to collect funds for damages from hurricanes Ian and Milton and is nearing completion of the remaining service requests due to the storms.
Imperium Consulting Group Director Joseph Mascali said the impacts from Hurricane Ian, which hit Lee County on Sept. 28, 2022, were just shy of $284 million. Total funds committed is $166.88 million, an increase of 29.64% since last year, and the total funds received is $148.88 million.
Total funds received puts the district in a strong financial position in pursuit of finalizing repairs moving forward. “Currently we are showing a surplus of funds of $29 million,” he said.
The three avenues of funds come from insurance recovery, grant funding and FEMA recovery.
As far as insurance recovery, Mascali said they are close to the finish line by working with the insurance adjustor to finalize paperwork for final payments. The district has since resolved its National Flood Insurance Program claim with a total payment of $5.75 million.
With FEMA, recovery there have been 179 projects that have been submitted to FEMA for review out of 182 total projects. Mascali said the three remaining are content damages. FEMA is starting the validation process of which they submitted $187 million on permanent projects.
“FEMA is starting the review process — they reviewed and validated $110 million. The delta is a timing exercise,” Mascali said. “We have received some payments from FEMA. The majority of the funds have been advanced through the governor’s legislature program.”
The other grant funding is through a Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recover – Housing Urban Development grant – a $500,000 vulnerability assessment project for future resiliency capital planning.
“We received a conditional award for $8 million for resiliency capital projects – replacements of roofs for shelter campuses to hard structures,” Mascali said. “The final component of the HUD grant is a cost share offset for second funding opportunity for 404-Hazard Mitigation.”
The presentation also highlighted where the district stands in terms of service requests from Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Milton. More than 100 sites that received damages from Hurricane Ian, and 15 sites were impacted by Milton, according to David Griffith with Accenture.
Catastrophically damaged campuses were Hector A. Cafferata Jr. Elementary School, which is being rebuilt, and Fort Myers Beach Elementary School and The Sanibel School. Assessments are due back from Fort Myers Beach Elementary School this month, which was impacted by both Hurricane Ian and Milton, he said.
A consultant will perform a facility assessment including looking at a more detailed structural assessment and community impact, Griffith said, adding there is an aggressive schedule for the next two and a half weeks, followed by a fully vetted report by the end of the month.
In addition, an architectural and structural engineer will make sure there are details for all five options, as well as an updated cost on April 25.
The Sanibel School has reopened and students have returned to the campus.
For Hurricane Ian there were more than 3,000 service requests, a tally which is now down to 70 requests that are still open. With Hurricane Milton there were 270 service requests, which is now down to 57 service requests still open.
All open requests are anticipated to be completed by the end of the year.