SIMI VALLEY : Schools Report Added Quake Costs

In a meeting Wednesday with federal analysts, Simi Valley school officials said FEMA relief workers had failed to adequately communicate earthquake repair rules--forcing the district to redo hundreds of forms and leaving it with the bill for $250,000 in architectural and engineering reports.

Supt. Mary Beth Wolford said that school district officials had to resubmit 791 damage survey reports when the Federal Emergency Management Agency told them six months after the Northridge earthquake that a separate report was required for each building. The district had combined reports for individual buildings on a single campus.

“We get one set of forms filled out, and then they change the forms, and then we have to go back and redo them all,” she said.

Wolford said the district also discussed about $250,000 worth of reports commissioned by the district that FEMA has refused to pay for. Wolford said the district had appealed that decision.

“We feel that the rules were changed,” Wolford said.

Wolford said school officials met with analysts, not criminal investigators who also work for the FEMA inspector general’s office. She said the analysts planned to prepare a report with suggestions on improving post-disaster communications.

Recently, the inspector general’s office pulled all the files on the Simi Valley Unified School District from the state Office of Emergency Services. Wolford said she wasn’t sure why, but speculated that the move may be related to the disputed architecture and engineering reports.

Rick Ranous, a senior structural engineer with the state emergency office, said he still has not gotten the files back or received an explanation for their removal.

The FEMA inspector general’s office, as a matter of policy, does not comment on ongoing investigations.