Butte County Fire Animal Rescue
OROVILLE — The Butte County Board of Supervisors was faced with a challenging decision on Tuesday: whether or not to reimburse the North Valley Animal Disaster Group for services during the Camp Fire despite a lapse in their memorandum of understanding.
While considerable discussion was had regarding the potential reimbursement, the board ultimately didn’t come to a consensus on doing so. The total reimbursement costs would have come out to $199, 046, though it became contentious as to whether the group even requested this money from the county at all.
During the Camp Fire, the group provided its services to save and contain animals affected by the wildfire. However, in doing so the group went against certain protocols which left it without the ability to reclaim costs from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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Chief Administrative Officer Andy Pickett introduced the item before the board on Tuesday, breaking down the situation as well as the county’s side.
“Disasters are, by their very nature, chaotic and it is human nature to respond to them in a disorganized way, ” Pickett said. “And this is why the field of emergency management is highly structured. It is meant to impose order and control in situations where disorganization can have dire circumstances and consequences. This structure spans from the federal government to the state to local government and to all those who respond to disasters, including nonprofit organizations.”
In this case, the nonprofit organization is NVADG, which responds to disasters to aid animals caught in the midst. Pickett noted that FEMA provides the money in disaster scenarios and therefore determines the rules that must be followed. Local government agencies and first responders must follow the FEMA Public Assistance Program and Policy Guidelines.
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“(The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services) adopts the (Public Assistance Program and Policy Guidelines) and we as the county set up our structure and policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the PAPPG, ” Pickett said. “This is critical for us because if we don’t follow the PAPPG, we don’t get reimbursement for our costs.”
Nonprofit organizations are required by these guidelines to have a memorandum of understanding with the county that provides details on their operations in order to receive reimbursement from FEMA. To recover costs, the organizations must comply with the memorandum of understanding.
Pickett said the MOU with the North Valley Animal Disaster Group states that all purchases for food or other animal necessities had to be documented via specific forms and then sent through the incident command system. The MOU also clearly states that the group would not be reimbursed for any spending of its own money.
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“There’s no ambiguity in this MOU, ” Pickett said. “And remember, when the process is followed, there are no out-of-pocket costs for NVADG. The process calls for the county to use its own funds.”
The group claimed that it received permission from someone with the county to use its own money to make emergency purchases, though Pickett said Sheriff Kory Honea confirmed that he did not give this permission nor did his staff.
“I looked into this to try and figure out what might have happened, ” Pickett said. “If NVADG got this permission from the field, this would have violated the (incident command system).”
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Costs accrued by the group were gathered and provided to the county to potentially be submitted to FEMA, but it was understood by the county that FEMA would not approve the reimbursement.
“FEMA is very rigid about these things, ” Pickett said. “I’ll give you an example of how rigid they are. This is an actual, current example we’re working with right now with the North Complex fires. FEMA has denied coroner costs for the North Complex fires. Their position is that people die every day and the fact that people died during the North Complex fires does not make it an expense related to disaster. That is the mindset we’re talking about here with FEMA.”
Regardless, the group pushed to have the documents sent forward to FEMA. Cindi Dunsmoor, former Butte County Emergency Manager, was the individual the group allegedly sent the documentation through and Pickett said she retired before submitting the documents.
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The reimbursement request made its way to the board’s agenda in August but was removed before the meeting. Pickett said there was some confusion at the time and it was initially believed that the group needed to be made whole and was facing dire financial issues, but that was determined to not be the case, pushing the item back until the board’s most recent meeting Tuesday. As part of holding off the agenda item, Pickett also needed to reconsider his original recommendation. On Tuesday, Pickett said, now knowing that NVADG was financially healthy, he could no longer recommend that the county provide the reimbursement from its general fund.
“County staff made mistakes, absolutely, ” Pickett said. “I think the biggest mistake we made was to give NVADG the false hope that FEMA would pay them. And we have to be absolutely better at distinguishing how we advocate for our partners instead of stringing them along in hopes that somebody else will be the bearer of bad news. We have to do better on that.”
During the public comment period for the agenda item, two representatives from the North Valley Animal Disaster Group, board member Norm Rosene and Executive Director John Maretti, provided their opinions on the matter as well as some of their concerns. This presentation provided more twists and turns regarding the agenda item.
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Rosene said he did not agree with much of Pickett’s report, stating that the group did not request the $199, 046 and that it was a number estimated by a county employee as what the reimbursement would be if FEMA had approved it.
“We never asked the county for money, never ever ever, ” Rosene said. “So every time you read in the staff report the request (is) from NVADG, it’s untrue.”
“We spent over $1 million of our own money during the Camp Fire, ” Rosene said. “Did we go outside the MOU, you bet we did. When I see Mr. Pickett’s attachment one of all the requirements during a disaster that you have to submit for, it’s really easy to put those on paper but when you’re understaffed and you’re scrambling in the middle of a disaster it’s hard to do so we did not follow that. And yet we knew that we might not get any reimbursement and that’s OK. We spent our money, we did what needed to be done and we funded the resources we needed.”
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In the wake of the Camp Fire, the group ended up sheltering more than 4, 000 animals and provided food for more than 6, 000 within the burn scar area.
“If we didn’t accomplish some paperwork and we did the best we could, that’s totally on us and we’re willing to accept that, ” Rosene said. “I’m not here to ask for the money today from you, I’m still not making that request. But I do want to know what happened to the FEMA request that we submitted because we were told by the people above us with the (incident command system) to keep track of our receipts and at the end of the disaster we would submit those receipts and see what happens.
Supervisor Peter Durfee responded to Rosene’s comments regarding the alleged missing FEMA request saying it’s possible it was lost in the shuffle.
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“We’ve all had people retire and unfortunately, when people retire some things get lost, ” Durfee said. “I’m not condoning it; I’m not saying it’s correct; I’m just saying things happen.”
Rosene went on to say that the group was also looking to clear its name and any idea that it was freelancing its services during the fire.
“That hurts my group, ” Rosene said. “My group is predicated on correct procedure and doing a professional job, and so I want to make sure that it’s stated clearly that we did what was necessary and if we were outside the paperwork guidelines, we totally accept that, but we accomplished the goal and we were professional doing it.”
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All four present supervisors, with Supervisor Bill Connelly absent, praised the work done by NVAGD but were unable to come to an agreement on reimbursement. Supervisor and Chair Tod Kimmelshue attempted a motion to use PG&E settlement funding to reimburse the group but it failed to get a second for approval and died before a vote.
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