LITTLE ROCK — CONGRATULATIONS all around. To the Guglielmana family. To Mark Pryor. To everybody who may benefit in the future by this decision. Glad it’s over. For some.
This whole FEMA to-do has been outrageous from the first. Government workers with the Federal Emergency Management Agency came to Arkansas back in 2008 after a series of floods and told a bunch of homeowners that they were eligible for aid. Word has it that those government workers (“We’re from the federal government and we’re here to help”) even helped folks fill out paperwork to get flood relief. Then, years later, another bureaucrat behind some other desk at FEMA decided that the money shouldn’t have been paid out (You live on the wrong side of the levee!) and started collection efforts.
Imagine having a flood soak all the furniture, appliances and books in your home, having to fix the place up again, only to be told that—through no fault of your own—you owe tens of thousands of dollars to the feds. A mistake on the government’s part meant that you were sent to collections—the federal kind. And the feds have ways of making you pay.
That’s what happened to Gary and Dorothy Guglielmana of the White County Guglielmanas. Wisely, they took their story to the state’s senior senator, Mark Pryor. And he didn’t like what he heard. Squeaky senators often times get the grease. As in this case.
After a very public scolding, a very public debate, and even more public outcry, word comes now that FEMA has reached a settlement with at least the Guglielmanas. ’Bout time. Those folks didn’t get the aid through any kind of fraud or deceit or scam. They were following directions.
At least for them, the story is over.
But articles point out that FEMA is curently reviewing more than 150,000 cases across the nation that might involve improper payments. (No word on how many of those improper payments were the fault of FEMA employees.) The feds have already started collections on more than 20,000 other homeowners.
In Arkansas, it’s said that dozens of families received aid from FEMA back in 2008. And the apparatchiks at FEMA are trying to claw back nearly $800,000. How many of those families are receiving Notice of Debt letters in the mail every month from the feds, demanding that thousands of dollars be sent back?
We share in the relief that the Guglielmanas must feel these days. But we also suspect, when it comes to this FEMA fight, Senator Pryor’s work isn’t done. A senator’s never is. But that’s why he’s paid the big bucks.
If federal bureaucrats don’t have, or display, common sense, then U.S. senators should step in to show them the way.
Otherwise, how are they going to learn?
Editorial, Pages 10 on 10/31/2011