The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ranks Ventura County fourth in the nation for securing funding for COVID-19 response. “The County took an aggressive approach in seeking FEMA reimbursement for the County’s $104 million in costs associated with our community-based testing and vaccine efforts in 2020. This approach was an administratively arduous task; however, the benefit was that it allowed our County to maximize the investment back into the community with more than $150 million in local assistance,” said County Executive Officer Mike Powers.
FEMA’s Public Assistance program provides grants to government following a presidential disaster declaration to quickly respond to and recover from major disasters or emergencies. The process to obtain grants is extensive.“It is outstanding. It really says something about our staff that they were able to do the extra work to make this happen. It certainly paid off for members of our community,” said Chair of the Board Supervisor Linda Parks.