Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
How Vermont lost track of millions in FEMA flood recovery funds
https://vtdigger.org/2025/10/16/how-vermont-lost-track-of-millions-in-fema-flood-recovery-funds/Tik Root
As the federal government pushes more disaster recovery responsibilities onto states, they are “sitting ducks” for contractors.
This story was first published by Grist.
More great reporting by VTDigger and Grist.org.
On the afternoon of August 21, Jason Gosselin raised the alarm: The flood recovery project he managed was running out of money faster than he had anticipated. One email he sent his colleagues ended with an anxious parenthetical: (calm down, Jason, calm down).
In July 2024, Vermont was hit by 100-year flooding for the second summer in a row. Among the aid that the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved was a $2.9 million grant to hire an 11-person disaster case management team to help victims navigate their FEMA applications, find other available resources, and rebuild their homes. The money was supposed to last two years but was on pace to be gone far sooner. The morning after his first email, Gosselin, who is the emergency management director at the Vermont Agency of Human Services, sent another message detailing the likely source of the unexpected financial drain. The corporate contractor Vermont used to hire the team, he calculated, was actually billing nearly half of the budget for its own staff.
. . .
Records show the state kept about $400,000 for hiring its own administrative staff. The rest — $2.5 million — was allocated to Guidehouse, a multinational consulting company, to hire the frontline workers. But Guidehouse only subcontracted seven people, instead of 11, for $1.1 million. That left more than a million dollars that the company could use toward its own services.
“There is a huge need in the state,” said Prem Linskey, the case management supervisor at a local Vermont aid group, the Recovery After Floods Team. The amount of work is often untenable, with so many people that need help. “The state’s case management plan could have been much more effective if they had hired more people.”
. . .
Vermont’s case is a “classic” example of what happens when a state or municipality writes a vague contract, said Craig Fugate, who was the FEMA administrator from 2009 to 2017. He explained that any contract should provide clear and measurable deliverables, with penalties for not performing.
. . .
“By shoving responsibilities from the federal level onto the state’s shoulders, it is creating a market for private contractors,” said one FEMA employee, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. “They’re sitting ducks.”
In July 2024, Vermont was hit by 100-year flooding for the second summer in a row. Among the aid that the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved was a $2.9 million grant to hire an 11-person disaster case management team to help victims navigate their FEMA applications, find other available resources, and rebuild their homes. The money was supposed to last two years but was on pace to be gone far sooner. The morning after his first email, Gosselin, who is the emergency management director at the Vermont Agency of Human Services, sent another message detailing the likely source of the unexpected financial drain. The corporate contractor Vermont used to hire the team, he calculated, was actually billing nearly half of the budget for its own staff.
. . .
Records show the state kept about $400,000 for hiring its own administrative staff. The rest — $2.5 million — was allocated to Guidehouse, a multinational consulting company, to hire the frontline workers. But Guidehouse only subcontracted seven people, instead of 11, for $1.1 million. That left more than a million dollars that the company could use toward its own services.
“There is a huge need in the state,” said Prem Linskey, the case management supervisor at a local Vermont aid group, the Recovery After Floods Team. The amount of work is often untenable, with so many people that need help. “The state’s case management plan could have been much more effective if they had hired more people.”
. . .
Vermont’s case is a “classic” example of what happens when a state or municipality writes a vague contract, said Craig Fugate, who was the FEMA administrator from 2009 to 2017. He explained that any contract should provide clear and measurable deliverables, with penalties for not performing.
. . .
“By shoving responsibilities from the federal level onto the state’s shoulders, it is creating a market for private contractors,” said one FEMA employee, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. “They’re sitting ducks.”