Okaloosa County BOCC — June 2, 2015 — FEMAValidation

Federal Emergency Management Agency To report suspected fraud, waste, or abuse, please call FEMA's hotline at 1-800-323-8603. Disaster recovery assistance is available without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, disability, or economic status. Anyone who believes he/she has been discriminated against should contact the FEMA Helpline at 1-800-525-0321.  Small Project Validation Chapter 5 Small Project Validation What is Small Project Validation? A distinctive aspect of small project approval is the verification of the accuracy of your claims by FEMA and/or State officials through a process called validation. This process assures FEMA that you understand the documentation and eligibility provisions of the Public Assistance Program and that you are capturing all eligible costs. Your records are the basis for validation, which will be limited to the minimum amount of review needed to ensure statutory and regulatory compliance. • This will normally be 20%, barring significant discrepancies, of all your small projects, for projects submitted within the first 30 days after the Kickoff Meeting. Normally, projects submitted after 30 days will be subject to 100% validation. • Your PAC will schedule validation at a time convenient for you, and you will be notified in advance which projects have been selected. This will allow you to have the appropriate records ready for review. • Validation can normally be completed within 15 days of submission of all Project Worksheets to the PAC. How does it work? The validation process begins when your Project Worksheets are submitted to the PAC. The PAC will review each worksheet to ensure the scope of work is complete and that all Special Considerations have been identified. Once you have determined that all small projects have been submitted, or a large batch of projects has been submitted, you should notify the PAC to proceed with validation. The PAC will request a Specialist from the FEMA I State resource pool to conduct the validation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency 41 Applicant Handbook Small Project Validation PAC, with input from the State, will select two samples from all the small projects you have submitted. Each sample is made up of 20% of the total small projects. If the first sample does not pass validation, the Specialist will conduct a second validation using the remaining sample. If an applicant has 4 or fewer Project Worksheets, a minimum of 1 Project Worksheet will always be validated. What will the Specialist be looking for? A Specialist will be assigned to conduct the validation and will perform the following tasks: • Visit the sites to confirm all aspects of the project description are accurate, complete and that all Special Considerations have been identified. • Confirm the damage description is complete, accurate and eligible. • Confirm the scope of work is complete, accurate and eligible. • Review all actual cost records to ensure completeness, accuracy and eligibility. • Review your cost estimate to ensure it is complete, accurate, reasonable and eligible. These tasks will require the Specialist to review the project file including all cost records, computations, measurements, notes, pictures, blueprints, plans, environmental conditions, Special Considerations, and any other documentation related to the project. You are responsible for documenting all claimed costs. This is a critical responsibility since undocumented costs could be considered a variance and potentially put you over the 20% allowable variance