Authorities say trees, limbs weren’t handled properly

State and federal authorities were not satisfied with how Warren County measured or disposed of trees and limbs cleared after Hurricane Katrina and won’t pay any more of a $190,000 bill submitted after the 2005 storm.

“We worked day and night trying to get back to normal,” said District 5 Supervisor Richard George, board president, frustrated that regulatory officials demanded more precise accounting.

The county wanted another $176,155.17 toward the more than $190,000 officials said was spent on debris removal.

Trouble was, County Administrator John Smith said, the method by which trees and limbs were disposed.

“We put some of it in holes on private property where we had permission,” Smith said.

About $16,000 has arrived from FEMA in the storm’s aftermath. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality notified county officials in the past week that the only way the county could get its money was if the debris was found, unearthed and hauled to landfills where, presumably, it could be measured.

Road crews were the most strained work forces of county government in the weeks following Katrina when crews cleared untold heaps of trees downed by the storm. Katrina still packed Category 1 force when it swept across Warren County, where one fatality was recorded — a woman crushed when a tree fell on her home. Much of the area was without electricity for a week. Forty-five counties, including Warren, were declared federal disaster areas, triggering eligibility for federal reimbursement for storm-related costs to the local treasury.

The amount reimbursed covered only overtime pay, Smith said.

In other business, supervisors began poring through local and private bills to have more donations to local charities authorized by the Legislature.

In the county’s 2007-08 operating budget, $615,500 of tax collections was marked for transfer to private agencies. Cities and counties are not allowed to give away public funds without the Legislature’s approval.

Some of the 20 agencies approved for possible funding have increases for more this year. Many other bills requested by city and county officials are in committee. One annually-desired item to raise surcharges on cell phones to fund E-911 operations failed on a first try, as Senate Bill 2685 by Sen. Nickey Browning, D-Pontotoc, who chairs the County Affairs Committee, died in the Public Utilities Committee.