County’s disaster fund has covered more than $352 million for damage from five hurricanes over 25 months
Acting on the recommendation of the staff of the Office of Financial Management, the Sarasota County Commission unanimously has approved a nearly $91.8-million budget amendment to fund projects related to recovery from hurricanes going back 10 years.
The exact figure was $91,790,354.
A slide presented to the board during its June 17 budget workshop pointed out that five declared disasters in 25 months resulted in an increase of almost 193% in the expenses shouldered by the county’s disaster fund — from 2022 through May. Hurricane Ian’s damage in September 2022 alone necessitated about $119,981,177 in payments from the fund, another slide said.
Altogether, for the five major hurricanes over 25 months — including the three in 2024 — the total expense from the disaster fund to-date was $352,054,934, the slide noted.
In response to a question posed by Commissioner Mark Smith, Kim Radtke, director of the Office of Financial Management, explained that about 75% of the nearly $91.8 million would be budgeted as money the county expects to receive from the Federal Emergency Management (FEMA), 12.5% of it is anticipated from the state, and the other 12.5% is the county’s share of the overall expense. As of that day, Radtke noted, the county’s portion is almost $8.1 million.
County Administrator Jonathan Lewis pointed out that the county share will come out of the appropriate department budgets. For example, funds that end up going toward a new sewage lift station would come out of the Public Utilities Department budget, he said.
Before the vote, Radtke also told the board members that approval of the proposed budget amendment would convey the necessary authority to staff to issue contracts and purchase orders “and to allow posting of expenditures.”
Staff still hopes that FEMA and the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) will end up reimbursing the county for its expenses, Radtke added. Nonetheless, the budget amendment “provides for good fiscal planning and transparency” in regard to the county’s Disaster Fund, she said.
Before the vote, Commissioner Tom Knight did seek clarity from Radtke about whether approving the amendment would represent the creation of a board policy “that maybe should have been in effect” earlier, to allow the expenditures of funds for responses to hurricanes going back to Hermine in 2016.
“It’s basically just making that very transparent,” Radtke replied, “that we’ll actually have a budget,” so contractors can be paid.
Then County Administrator Lewis explained that the vote “[is] really to make sure that the [Office of the Sarasota County Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller] has the proper authorization from the board,” so the staff can process the payments.
“There’s never been a problem,” with covering storm expenses, Lewis indicated, because, in the past, the county had not endured three storms in one summer, as it did in 2024, or a total of five storms hitting “in a relatively short period of time.”
However, if a series of storms were to strike two years in a row, Lewis pointed out, “That’ll be a real issue.”
In response to a question from Commissioner Teresa Mast, Radtke said that the amount staff was asking the board to approve that day would cover all the payments related to the 10 years of storms.
Her team, Radtke continued, reviewed the payments the county already had made this year and what would have to be paid for in the future.
When Mast also asked for a breakdown of all the related expenses over the 10-year period, Radtke had a document ready with those details, she said.
After Radtke put that document on the overhead projector, she pointed out, for example, that staff still is waiting on reimbursements from FEMA and the FDEM of $268.5 million, as of May 29.
Ongoing concerns about FEMA’s future
“You’re talking two to five years,” Radtke stressed, before the county gets reimbursed for its storm expenses. Then she noted again that staff has yet to receive the money it expected for the Hurricane Hermine expenses 10 years ago.
Next, she showed the commissioners a slide with an example of a timeline regarding what she characterized as a “pretty basic project that [FEMA workers] see all the time.” It focused on the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which struck in September 2022. “And it still took 16 months, “Radtke pointed out, from the time that staff submitted the required materials to the state and the date the county received the funds.
Then she presented a slide regarding the aftermath of damage from Hurricane Idalia, emphasizing “28 months for this project … for us to receive that funding from the state.”
Further, Radtke explained the financial risk of completing recovery work without knowing whether FEMA will approve a reimbursement for it. “Obviously, the project might not be deemed eligible for FEMA reimbursement, so we would have to [bear] the full cost for that. Obviously, a very lengthy time in between the event and FEMA obligation where you’re not sure, not sure, not sure, until you get that obligation,” she added.
Moreover, Radtke noted, not all categories of permanent repairs may be authorized by a federal disaster declaration. “There may be work that we need to complete under a category that’s not technically been approved,” Radtke said.
“Of course, there’s a high demand for FEMA funding,” she continued.
Radtke further noted “the conversation about the potential [restructuring of FEMA by the federal government] that we’ve heard over the past year.”
Politico reported on May 24 that Kevin Guthrie, Florida’s emergency management chief, expects FEMA to provide funding faster this year than in recent years if the state suffers any major storm effect. “The only thing holding back the state’s recovery from previous storms over the past two years, Guthrie said, has been the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which made changes two years ago that significantly slowed down the process used by states to request billions in federal funding,” Politico added.
“ ‘Nobody in the emergency management arena, Republican or Democrat, ever expected [the U.S. Department of Homeland Security] to enact some of the policy regulations that were enacted,’ Guthrie said. ‘That did slow the process down,’ ” the Politico article continued.
“ ‘We’ve seen more money move in the last six weeks than we saw in the last 16 months,’ ” Politico quoted him further. ‘None of us expected these slowdowns,’ ” Guthrie added in the article.
How other local governments handle their disaster spending
During the June 17 workshop discussion, Radtke also showed the commissioners a slide comparing how other counties and the municipalities in Sarasota County deal with repairs, including their budgeting practices.
For example, she said, Sarasota County staff asked representatives of those other local governments whether they begin repairs before they know the work will be eligible for a FEMA reimbursement. “You can see it’s ‘Yes’ all the way down,” she added, referring to the slide.
The Town of Longboat Key and the City of Sarasota complete the work only if it relates to what she called a “life-safety” issue. With other projects, they await a FEMA obligation, Radtke said.
“Then we asked, ‘Do you budget for those related expenditures?’ ” Most do, while the county does not, Radtke pointed out.
Referencing the same slide, Commissioner Teresa Mast asked Radtke about information provided by the City of Sarasota. That municipality uses money out of its Capital Projects budget, the slide said, “until reimbursement is received,” Mast noted.
The county does not budget for repairs without knowing that FEMA will pay for them, Mast continued. Yet, “We’ve had how many requests come from [the City of Sarasota] … That’s a little bit of a challenge to me,” she continued, referring to the county’s Resilient SRQ Program, through which it has allocated funding for multiple hurricane-related projects, using two different grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to pay for unmet needs from Hurricane Ian in 2022, as well as Hurricanes Helene and Milton and Tropical Storm Debby in 2024.
“If they do have a policy in place, or maybe a procedure,” then why did the city make so many requests of the county for assistance, Mast asked Radtke.
“That’s a very good question,” Radtke acknowledged. “I’m not even sure that I have the answer for that question.” She added that, while the City of Sarasota staff members do budget for the repairs, perhaps they are taking money that has been allocated for specific projects and “utilizing that funding until the reimbursement is actually received.”
She assumed, Radtke said, that those capital projects cannot be undertaken until the city receives the FEMA money. Then Radtke clarified that she did not have actual information from the city to be able to answer Mast’s question.
Mast responded, “We’re struggling to keep the wheels on the bus from the impact that we’ve had. So I want to be fair and equitable to all municipalities involved.”
Mast reminded her colleagues that the City of Sarasota had one of the highest totals for requests for funding out of the nearly $210.1-million grant that the county received in January 2025 from HUD to respond to unmet needs in the aftermath of the 2024 hurricane season.
“I’m not criticizing them,” Mast added of City of Sarasota staff members; she just found the information to be interesting. “I think we need to be very mindful [of how the city budgets for storm repairs], going forward,” Mast said.
Then Commissioner Smith explained that his interpretation of the information from the City of Sarasota is that, “when they have a disaster, they’re taking the money out of their Capital Projects. … And we probably need a clarification on what they actually do have budgeted for a disaster.”
‘They don’t know when we’re going to help them,” Smith added, “and they have immediate needs like we do.” The County Commission could call for county staff to take money out of its Capital Projects budget, as well, to address immediate needs, Smith pointed out, “and then wait for FEMA to pay us back.”
Commissioner Joe Neunder then asked Radtke about a hypothetical situation: If the city takes funds out of its Capital Projects budget, would city staff be asking for Resilient SRQ money for its Capital Projects account, to replace the funds used for hurricane responses? “That’s kind of what I’m hearing,” Neunder said. “Is that possible?”
“It’s very possible,” Radtke responded, noting that she understood he was referring to the Resilient SRQ funds that the commissioners approved in the late 2025 for city projects involving Hudson Bayou and Whitaker Bayou, plus an infrastructure project on St. Armands Circle. County staff could check with city staff to learn whether, indeed, the city had those initiatives in its Capital Projects budget before the storms, Radtke added.
“When you gotta fix things in your community, you gotta do it,” Neunder said, for safety and wellness purposes. “I completely understand that.” Yet, Neunder indicated his desire to learn exactly what the city has done.
“Let’s just be very transparent about it,” Mast said of the situation.
Neunder concurred with Mast.
“We’ve all; learned a lot from this experience [with the storms and FEMA reimbursements],” Mast pointed out. “These are uncharted waters.” Again, she stressed her concern that the County Commission be fair in allocations of funding for storm-related projects, keeping in mind that the county has nearly 500,000 residents. “In order to do that, I think there needs to be some more information.”
Any application for Resilient SRQ money needs to be clear about the financial factors related to the specific project, Mast added.
County staff put on hold a number of projects, and stopped some, “because we were trying to make sure that we were being fair and equitable throughout the county to be sure we met the needs as soon as possible,” Mast pointed out.
Chair Ron Cutsinger asked that Radtke “get some clarify for us” on that City of Sarasota situation.
Radtke told him she would follow up with city staff.
In response to a Sarasota News Leader inquiry, the staff of the Office of Financial Management provided the following information in a June 23 email regarding its outreach to City of Sarasota staff: “The City responded that the funding for these projects was not used as the funding source for immediate disaster or emergency-related expenditures. These projects were incorporated into the City’s Capital Improvement Program [CIP] for planning, budgeting, and grant administration purposes. They are programmed as capital projects with anticipated grant funding and any required local funding participation. To accommodate these priorities within the CIP, other ongoing or future capital projects have been deferred or adjusted; however, the Resilient SRQ project allocations were not redirected to fund emergency response expenses.”
Commissioner Knight ended up making the motion to approve the budget amendment for the disaster payments, and Commissioner Smith seconded it.