CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The adjutant general in West Virginia says “some tough decisions” are ahead for those who oversee homeland security and emergency management in West Virginia if the partial U.S. government shutdown continues into February.
“We’re already being significantly impacted by the shutdown, but it will get more difficult if they are not able to reach an agreement here in the near future,” Maj. General James Hoyer told MetroNews.
After rampant delays, Governor Jim Justice last summer put Hoyer in charge of RISE West Virginia, the long-term flood recovery program for people who lost their homes completely or saw their homes significantly damaged in the June 2016 flood.
In October, he also began overseeing the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management adding to his duties as leader of the West Virginia National Guard.
While the Guard is funded through the end of the fiscal year under an already-approved U.S. Department of Defense spending bill, homeland security and emergency management are not due to the immigration standoff in Washington, D.C.
The dispute, which pushed the shutdown into its 25th day Tuesday, has hinged on $5 billion in funding for President Donald Trump’s proposed wall at the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
By all accounts, talks were stalled to start the week.
“I’m exceptionally concerned and frustrated,” Hoyer said. “They’ve got to figure out something here.”
Next month marks eight years for Hoyer in the role of adjutant general.
In each of those eight years, he noted, there was only one year when a U.S. Department of Defense budget was approved on time.
“We got pretty good at managing shutdowns and preparing for things, so we front-loaded a lot of things in the RISE program and we front-loaded some things in the (Division of) Homeland Security and Emergency Management anticipating this,” Hoyer said Tuesday.
“It’s gotten us this far and, from an employee standpoint, will get us probably to the end of this month.”
If the shutdown continues past January’s close, “We will be at the point where we’ll be having to make a decision to move forward with strictly state dollars and being able to front things until they do come to a solution,” he predicted.
“Once we get to that point, we’ve got some hard decisions to make.”
Furloughs of state workers paid with money from the federal government were a possibility.
Beyond personnel, Hoyer said the shutdown was limiting what he called “some really good momentum” for RISE West Virginia which is funded with $150 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In December, West Virginia was removed from HUD’s “slow spender” list for usage of disaster funding.
This week, RISE work was continuing on projects where contractors had already received initial payments.
Three dozen projects were at that point in the construction process, according to information from RISE.
Hundreds of cases were still outstanding.
Also working in communities in central West Virginia were volunteers with Appalachia Service Project
As of Tuesday, however, Hoyer said a slum and blight demolition program was contractually completed but could not be executed for funding drawdowns because “the right people” weren’t available at HUD.
A final environmental analysis for the more than $5.5 million Riverview at Clendenin School project in Kanawha County was “almost complete,” according to Hoyer.
However, he said a required review of the analysis could not happen with the U.S. government partially closed.
A bridge replacement program was also stalled, Hoyer reported.
Additionally, the shutdown has meant delays for emergency management grants, hazard mitigation grants and public assistance being paid to counties for floods in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
State processing was continuing, Hoyer said, but federal processing was delayed.
Speaking Monday to county leaders in Charleston, he told them they could expect to soon see a slowdown of dollars for projects and personnel.
“I hope they (leaders in Washington) will come to an agreement because we’ve got a lot of work that the Governor’s tasked us to do that we’ve got to continue to work on behalf of the citizens,” Hoyer said.
“We need to keep that going to take care of people.”