Disaster Finance

All expenditures for disaster public assistance reimbursement must be well documented and maintained on a project by project basis. A project is defined as the number assigned for the project worksheet written by the FEMA representative that spells out the scope of work to be completed. Records typically required as supporting documentation for disaster public reimbursement claims subject to an audit include: cancelled checks, invoices, payroll, time and attendance records, contracts, etc. These records are to be maintained in the following manner:

• Original invoices and cancelled checks are currently maintained electronically by the Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector’s (ACTTC) office. The original paper files are held at the records management office.
• Payroll, time and attendance records, and contracts are maintained by the individual department responsible for eligible project expenditures. If these records are broken down to the project level, then the records should be maintained in the project specific file.
• FEMA/CalEMA correspondence including notification of obligations, appeals, change of scopes, and time extensions are scanned and filed electronically on the ACTTC shared drive. The electronic file is emailed to the department involved in the topic project. The originals are stored at Records Management.
• Deposits of disaster reimbursement funds received from FEMA/CalEMA and all related revenue transfers to appropriate recipients are prepared by the ACTTC and are maintained at the ACTTC's office until final event close-out before being forwarded to Records Management.
• Departments are to maintain detailed project spreadsheets identifying their eligible FEMA expenditures by labor, equipment, and materials. The subtotals of these categories should roll-up to a summary sheet that identifies the total project expense claimed. The total costs claimed are to be net of any other revenues or credits applied from other sources, as FEMA is the last resource for funding. If the county was eligible to claim reimbursement from insurance or another federal funding source and neglects to do so, FEMA funds will be denied. Make sure that the expenditures claimed match the scope of work per the project worksheet. These detailed project records are to be made available to ACTTC staff and will be used to complete the project completion and certification report.

The County of Sonoma as a whole is considered "one applicant" by FEMA/CalEMA. A "Final Inspection Report" (FIR) will be filed at the end of the event once the last project for the entire county has been completed. The individual department project spreadsheets are used to complete this final report and these records will be maintained in an electronic file at the ACTTC office. This FIR must be acknowledged and closed by FEMA/CalEMA. Once the event as a whole is settled and FEMA issues an audit waiver letter a 3 year audit window will be started. The Office of Homeland Security can initiate an audit at any time during this period. Once an audit is initiated there is no set time frame as to when it will become settled. The county may need all disaster related records to support an audit. For this reason, the ACTTC's office will set the retention dates of all disaster files. Current County policy has been to retain all disaster records for 4 years past 7/1/xx of the year following the final settlement of any audit findings.

The Disaster Finance Team works closely with the County Administrator's Office of Recovery and Resiliency in the event of a disaster. For more information about how the funds are spent and what projects the CAO's office is working on, we invite you to visit the Office of Recovery and Resiliency's web page.

If you have questions please contact the Disaster Finance team at ACTTC-DisasterFinance@sonoma-county.org.