Persistence Pays Off for Quake Victims : CSUN learns that detailed communication is the key to continued federal funding

So, you’re involved with a public facility or institution that deserves federal aid from the Northridge earthquake, but the money just isn’t rolling in? Perhaps part of the problem is on your end of the pipeline. In any event, it is generally better to investigate first and speak later.

This advice goes out to all of the universities, colleges, school districts and other public facilities that suffered great damage during the January, 1994, temblor. Our example is Cal State Northridge.

CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson and her colleagues deserve great credit for the finest example of a quick and professional damage assessment in the initial days and weeks after the quake. It allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state agencies to make a quick analysis and a rapid initial allocation of aid.

That was the biggest reason why CSUN stands alone in the relatively huge amount of aid it has already received (more than 50% of what has been asked for). The percentage of aid received so far for institutions such as UCLA and the Los Angeles Unified School District, for example, was dramatically lower.

That is why we were so surprised when Wilson was so critical recently of the pace of federal aid. She said that the slowdown threatened to stall the recovery of her campus.

Well, it turns out that the CSUN staff may have wrongly believed that most of their hard work was over, and they may not have kept their president fully apprised of the situation. Sure enough, Wilson later conceded that a lack of disaster staffing at the school had contributed to the problem.

“We had not anticipated the degree of additional information that is necessary. . . . But now we know,” Wilson said.

The problem is the degree of detailed damage information that any institution must produce in order for the federal government to release funds on a continuing basis. Sure, the rules are probably cumbersome and tedious. We guarantee one thing, however. Trying to change the rules will take a lot longer than simply complying with them.