U.S. Delays Decision on Quake Repair Funds : Recovery: FEMA won’t commit money to fixing hospitals until state permanently revises building code. Local frustration voiced.

Federal officials said Friday they are putting on hold for a few months some crucial decisions on how much money to give to help repair $2 billion in Northridge earthquake damage at County-USC Medical Center, the UCLA Medical Center and nine other hospitals.

The announcement by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that it will not act on the funding until the state makes permanent revisions in its building code prompted new expressions of frustration from state and local officials about federal delays.

It brought to an end a weeklong exchange of letters between state and federal officials in which the Wilson Administration sought immediate recognition of “emergency” changes in the building code, while the Clinton Administration said this was insufficient to allow it to approve assistance.

One state official said Friday that making the code permanent could be a 120-day process, putting federal decisions off until early 1996, two years after the earthquake. But the director of the state Office of Emergency Services, Richard Andrews, said he hopes the process can be completed by Nov. 29.

Andrews characterized FEMA officials’ decision not to immediately accept emergency code revisions as “bureaucratic pedantry,” although he conceded that technically FEMA is within the law.

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In Washington, chief FEMA spokesman Morrie Goodman responded: “If we could come in with an open bank and blank checks, we would. But anyone who thinks this is bureaucratic red tape thinks we can operate without laws.”

Goodman also cautioned that strengthening of the California building code will not necessarily trigger federal assistance in all cases.

But he added that FEMA Director James Lee Witt “is trying extremely hard to find every which way under the sun to fund those projects with as much federal money as possible according to the law. He has pledged that, the President has pledged that, that anything that can be done will be done.”

At the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration, Sandra Davis, chief deputy to County Administrative Officer Sally Reed, expressed disappointment with the new delay.

“This process is taking a lot longer than it should,” Davis said. “We’ve had commitments from FEMA that they would take care of the damaged facilities, and we want to be sure our requests are taken seriously and handled expeditiously.”

In three County-USC hospital aid requests previously ruled on by FEMA, the county asked for $273.6 million, and FEMA granted only $23.3 million. The county is appealing those decisions.

In addition to County-USC and UCLA, the other hospitals seeking federal aid for Northridge quake damage are Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center, Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, St. John’s Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Queen of Angels Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Harbor View Center, Holy Cross Medical Center and Northridge Medical Center.

The law governing FEMA assistance states that the agency will pay for bringing structures back to their pre-earthquake condition along with applicable code updates. The code changes frequently increase the cost of repairs, and the state has been pushing certain code improvements that could qualify hospitals for vastly greater federal help.

In a conference call interview Friday, senior FEMA officials said they want to make sure that state agencies are not adopting temporary code improvements to qualify for massive government assistance, only to drop those codes when it comes to applying them to ordinary builders.

“We could not obligate monies against an interim provision,” said Craig Wingo, national director of the Infrastructure Support Division at FEMA.

He added, however, that in the meantime, while permanent codes are adopted, FEMA is committed to doing all the preparatory work necessary to make a funding decision when the codes are adopted permanently.

Outside the hospital area, meanwhile, FEMA officials said that officials at Los Angeles City Hall, where a quake retrofit project has been suspended because of soaring costs, have not detailed Northridge temblor damage the way FEMA has requested.

“This week, we began a field verification of the damage,” Wingo said. “We will prepare a damage survey report.”

The city has been doing the retrofit thus far with money from a bond issue, but it has expressed an intent to seek FEMA funds as well.