From: John Cuccia 

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 15:59:53 -0400, Richard B.  wrote:

>On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 15:28:14 -0400, "Gary Britt"
> wrote:
>
>>I hope that Congress puts real strings and strong federal oversight as
>>conditions to getting and spending the relief money.
>
>Way to big a pot of money for the corrupt to ignore...I wonder how
>many so-called journalists will keep an eye on the cash.

Here's one:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archive
s/2005_09_27.html#082998
La. gives back much of FEMA money

Health officials used only about $10 million

By Laura Maggi
Capital bureau

BATON ROUGE - The Department of Health and Hospitals has declined the bulk
of $352 million in disaster assistance handed to the state by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency late last week, with agency officials saying
that they spent only about $10 million during the aftermath of Hurricane
Katrina.

The $352 million showed up in a list of projects approved by FEMA totaling
$457 million, which was deposited by the federal government last week in
the state of Louisiana's bank account. But the state health department has
taken only the roughly $10 million that they are entitled to so far, said
Bob Johannessen, the spokesman for the agency.

"We are obligated under federal law to return that money. That is what
we did," said Johannessen, who noted that the agency is supposed to
take only what it has actually spent.

He said that the health department eventually expects to spend about
$60 million in dealing with Katrina, including such costs as the
shelters and triage centers set up to evaluate people evacuated from the
flooded New Orleans area. Agency officials expect to request that FEMA
eventually pick up the whole tab for those kinds of items, Johannessen
said.

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