Salt Lake County awaits evacuee paybacks

Salt Lake County wishes it was only a case of "the check's in the mail." But when that check finally comes, it may not have been worth the wait.

County officials are still waiting for a full reimbursement for monies spent in the state's effort in aiding Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Meanwhile a handful of state agencies have already been paid back more than a half million dollars for their efforts.

State officials allegedly told the county the reimbursement it will receive — eventually — will be "far less than" full reimbursement, said Doug Willmore, chief administrative officer. "That's all we were told, with no reasoning at all.

"We've been led to believe although we were promised a full reimbursement, the fact of the matter is the reimbursement will be far less than that," Willmore said.

The money will come once the county completes the necessary paperwork and submits its costs to the state, said Derek Jensen, spokesman for the Utah Department of Homeland Security.

The state has already received $556,814.05 from the federal government for costs related to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

How much more money is expected to come, however, is uncertain. Reimbursement requests are continuing to flow into the department, which then submits them to FEMA for final approval, Jensen said.

"At this point, it would be hard to really speculate what is still coming in because, again, it's us waiting to receive information from the individual departments," he said.

The most expensive costs so far, according to records obtained by the Deseret Morning News through a Government Records Access and Management Act request, include housing at $274,693.29 and the transportation of evacuees from the airport to Camp Williams and, later, off the military base at $68,014.

To date, the state's Department of Administrative Services, Division of Emergency Services and Homeland Security and Department of Community and Culture, as well as the Utah Transit Authority, University of Utah and Utah National Guard have all received reimbursement for services offered to Utah's Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

Absent is the Utah Department of Workforce Services, which had a large presence at Camp Williams helping the 583 evacuees with everything from food-stamp applications to transportation.

Salt Lake County already asked the state for $414,789 to pay for the United Fire Authority's costs during the disaster, but has not yet received payment. UFA firefighters and paramedics traveled to the hurricane-stricken area to assist in search and rescue.