BLOOMFIELD — Joe Pulliam, of Smith and Company who acts as Stoddard County’s floodplain manager, reported what he learned at a meeting with a State Emergency Management Agency representative during Monday’s meeting of the county commission.
Pulliam, who is also the county surveyor, met with Emergency Management Officer and Certified Floodplain Manager Linda Olsen on Sept. 12.
He said that Olsen was pleased that the county is being proactive in hiring a certified floodplain manager, who will handle the necessary paperwork and notify residents of changes to the floodplain map.
Pulliam learned that the new floodplain maps will be released in late 2020 or early 2021.
Presiding Commissioner Danny Talkington said that the commission took action on the matter so soon because if a city or county doesn’t have a certified manager who properly keeps records on post-FIRM structures, residents might not know if they live in a flood zone and be able to purchase flood insurance.
A post-FIRM building is a structure for which construction or substantial improvement occurred after the effective date of an initial Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM), which occurred in 1987 in in the county.
Pulliam said that each property with post-FIRM structures located in a flood zone must have a file with the floodplain manager, including date of construction, recent property value, copy of the flood map, pictures of the property/structures and any other communications.
Pulliam said that he and Olsen discussed a community rating system.
“This is a lot of paperwork and review process by SEMA/FEMA that ultimately, if passed, lowers flood insurance premium rates for customers in said community,” Pulliam said.
Currently FEMA recognizes 180 policies totaling $18,777,500 in potential insurance claims for citizens of the county. This amount does not include disaster funding requested by government entities for an additional $5.4 million available for increased cost of compliance for substantially (more than 50 percent) damaged structures.
Pulliam said that one mandatory training session is required for floodplains managers, but SEMA/FEMA pays for hotel and meals, rather than the county.
The commissioners signed an amendment to the Floodplain Management Outsourcing Contract that includes the use of a clerk to handle the paperwork. Pullium said that the clerk could do the work for less money than he could.
EMA Report
Stoddard County EMA Director Kent Polsgrove told the commission that the city of Bernie informed him on Sept. 18 that it will no longer be part of the county’s outdoor warning system.
Outdoor Warning Consulting LLC (OWC) helped Bernie take control of the sirens and will handle service calls.
OWC had serviced the county’s siren system, but the EMA chose to go with David Battles to handle the system. Polsgrove said that OWC took too long to repair system issues.
Polsgrove said that the company is under new ownership, and he believes the changes made to how it handles service calls would take care of most of the complaints the EMA made to the company.
• Polsgrove said that the OWC told him that the EMA radios can be programmed to turn on the sirens in different portions of the county. Currently, all sirens in the county are activated even if the warned storm is located in the far northern or southern parts of the county.
Polsgrove said that the EMA uses the Sheriff’s Department’s radio frequency to inform law enforcement of a warned storm. He asked if the EMA could acquire its own frequency. He said he would get estimates and will present them to the board in the future.
• Polsgrove said the SEMO EMPG office has given tentative approval to the county’s EMA to purchase a new weather radar computer. He said the matching funds grant would pay for 44 percent of the costs. He said that the county would incur no cost for the computer. The cost would come out of the EMPG budget.
Insurance update
The county commission met with Jeremy Billington, of Mutual Medical, who currently handles the county’s health insurance plan. He presented information about how the premium rates have remained steady since the company took over the county’s insurance needs on Jan. 1, 2015.
The county wanted to flatten the costs of premiums in a market where costs are continuously rising while maintaining the same coverages, Talkington said of the reason behind choosing Mutual Medical.
The commission will be seeking bids from other companies for not only health insurance but for liability insurance.
In other news
•The commission approved a bid of $1,000 by Trent Sifford to remove a chain-linked fence behind the sheriff’s office. The fence needs to be removed so that dirt work can begin on the jail expansion.
• Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney Russell Oliver told the commission that the county has not been informed by the state if the victim advocate grant has been renewed for another year. The grant expired Monday, and he asked that the advocate continue his duties in the interim because the grant has been renewed a week or two after deadline in past years.
He said if the grant is not renewed, his office would pay the advocate for time worked in October.
Advocates advise victims of crimes when the prosecuting attorney elects to take a plea deal in a case to make sure the victim understands and accepts the plea.
The commissioners said they would discuss the issue and get back with him.