FEMA Should Recover $4.85 Million of Ineligible Grant Funds Awarded to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The City received a Public Assistance grant award of $9.8 million from the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management (Oklahoma), a FEMA grantee, to recover from severe storms and tornadoes that occurred in May and June 2013. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, (City) did not always account for and expend FEMA grant funds according to Federal regulations and FEMA guidelines. The City claimed $4.85 million in contract costs without taking the affirmative steps that Federal regulations require to ensure the use of small and minority firms, women’s business enterprises, and labor surplus area firms when possible, nor did it take the steps that its own affirmative policy required. As a result, FEMA has no assurance that these types of firms had sufficient opportunities to bid on federally funded work as Congress intended.