Video: No Money Is Owed From 2014 Tornado Recovery Efforts

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- Reports surfaced last week about the city of Louisville owing FEMA over 25 million dollars for recovery efforts from the 2014 tornado.  However, Mayor Will Hill told residents during the board of alderman meeting on Tuesday,  that it’s not true.

In fact, Hill said the city doesn’t owe any money.

He said all three parties FEMA, MEMA and the city of Louisville are working together as a team and are being audited by the Office of the Inspected General.

Hill said the audit does find that some mistakes were made by the city, but nothing that warrants de-obligating the money.

Mayor Hill also added this audit is an old issue and everything has been resolved.

A representative of MEMA also addressed residents during the board of alderman meeting to clear up any and all confusion about this entire situation.

“It’s not the OIG’s responsibility to go in and determine the severity of the mistake that was made, they leave that to FEMA,” said Lee Smithson, executive director for MEMA.  “They just come in and say we made a mistake, we’ll I’ll ask you, is there anybody that’s perfect? Is there any such thing as a perfect recovery process, and I’ll submit to you there’s not.”

“What we did was we followed procurement laws traditionally, and always have, and we did that and we also did everything with MEMA and FEMA’s approval,” said Louisville mayo Will Hill. “The idea that anyone was trying to take or to retract money from the city of Louisville, that was not even indicated in the audit.”

Mayor Hill said the city has remained nearly 11 million dollars under budget in its recovery.