COLUMBUS, Mississippi (WCBI) – Columbus city council on Tuesday unanimously voted to withdraw its FEMA rebate claim for the construction of the Sim Scott Community Center after the 2019 tornado.

It was after Mayor Keith Gaskin submitted what appeared to be regarding financial records at the auditor’s office a few days earlier.

“It looked like we were at risk of violating state legal compliance and the tendering process,” he says.

During his press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Gaskin explained how they made the discovery as the city scrambled to complete its audit. This included FEMA’s claim for reimbursement of nearly $ 250,000 spent on the construction of the center.

FEMA has already reimbursed Columbus for almost all of the money requested in the 2019 EF-3 tornado. Center Sim Scott said the city would have been eligible for an additional reimbursement of around $ 1 million. , but the insurance company provided the city with about $ 740,000 to rebuild the community center.

Mississippi law requires that any public project over $ 50,000 be the subject of a request for proposals. Projects that cost more than $ 5,000 require two quotes. The Sim Scott project cost approximately $ 900,000.

“What looked suspicious, just looking at the spreadsheet without knowing all the details, was that we ended up with a contractor responsible for nine different elements of the project, many of which are only a few weeks apart,” says town lawyer Jeff Turnage.

This contractor was Precision Metal Building. Owner Shirley Thompson told WCBI her company has submitted the appropriate bids and quotes to the city.

“It doesn’t mean that something illegal happened,” said Mayor Gaskin. “It basically told me that we just didn’t have the procedures in place internally to make sure this happened.”

Turnage says that at the city council’s executive session on Tuesday, it was determined that the city had spent some of its insurance money on projects unrelated to the storms.

“As a result, it was uncertain at best whether to ask FEMA for the additional $ 250,000 we could have obtained,” the attorney said.

Columbus Public Information Officer Joe Dillon, who manages the city’s FEMA applications, believes this will actually help the city in its future interactions with FEMA.

“Ever since we went to them and said, ‘We have this problem, let us explain it to you,’ he says. ” They trust us.

Precision Metal Building strives to provide WCBI with documentation of their offers and quotes for the Sim Scott Project.

The mayor says it’s also possible that the state auditor’s office could not find anything illegal in the report they completed.