Town, School District of Lee County in war of words over $11.3 million FEMA award letter for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School
A brief glimmer of hope last week spread on social media after Town of Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers announced word he received of $11.3 million in FEMA funds on its way to the School District of Lee County, which he hoped would reopen the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. While that turned out not to be the case, the attention to the FEMA award letter for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School that Allers cited has raised new questions about how the school district directed funds to reopen the school after Hurricane Ian and what the plans are for reopening a school that has remained closed since the much smaller storm and impact of Hurricane Milton a year ago.
Town of Fort Myers Beach Manager Will McKannay’s office is now requesting numerous documents from the school district to determine whether any funds that had been earmarked for Fort Myers Beach Elementary from FEMA after Hurricane Ian had been re-directed or how the original plans may have changed.
It all started with a post on the Facebook page of Allers last week applauding the state’s two Senators and local Congressman Byron Donalds for a FEMA announcement of an $11.3 million award for what was described by Allers as an award to the School District of Lee County for repairing Fort Myers Beach Elementary School in order to reopen it.
The $11.3 million award letter, forwarded to Allers last week from Donalds staffer Jesse Purdon, had been sent out a week earlier by FEMA announcing the awards of funding for multiple FEMA aid projects throughout the state.
Upon a closer look, the award letter turned out to be an award for repairs the school district had already completed on the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School in 2023 after Hurricane Ian — not for the damage caused by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton which has kept the school shuttered since last fall.
“This award should help make significant progress toward restoring this vital community asset and ensuring the school can reopen and operate as soon as possible,” Allers said on Facebook. “This critical funding will help us adhere to the existing interlocal agreement by supporting the rebuild efforts needed to keep the school operational and accessible to our students and families, especially in this recovery phase,” Allers said on his Facebook page where he first announced the award letter.
Allers said the FEMA award “will fund the permanent repairs and replacement of the six main buildings severely impacted by storm surge, wind and rain.”
Fort Myers Beach residents reading the initial news announced on the Facebook page of Allers initially celebrated, believing the funds were going to get the school back open. The Town of Fort Myers Beach, through its communications office and town manager, put out a similar statement on its social media pages and through an advisory email sent to residents announcing the award and giving hope that federal funds had arrived to get the school back open.
Officials from the school district quickly shot down the notion that there was any new money for the school district, explaining that town officials essentially misread the award letter which they said was for work the school district already did and for funds already spent after Hurricane Ian. The money in the award would go back to pay a loan from the state that had been given through a state loan program set up by the state legislature after Hurricane Ian to advance funds to municipalities ahead of reimbursement from FEMA.
“FEMA, like many federal and state government agencies, adopts and uses terms that are not used in their ordinary meaning. The notice from FEMA states that the $11 million figure for the School District is an award. The dictionary definition of “award” includes payment or compensation,” School District of Lee County spokesman Rob Spicker said in an email outlining the school district’s response to the announcement about the award letter.
“However, in FEMA’s obligation notice for Fort Myers Beach Elementary School, the amount reflected as an award actually represents the net obligated amount, meaning FEMA’s calculated total project cost minus the anticipated insurance proceeds,” Spicker said.
Instead, Spicker said the “$11 million will be credited against the Florida Local Agency Program, which already disbursed funding to the School District, as those funds function as an advance on FEMA Public Assistance funding. As a result, no additional payment will be issued to the School District.”
The award itself and the school district’s response to questions about the award raised more questions than answers, and the responses from the school district have only led to more questioning from parents who have been involved in working to reopen the school that has been closed since Hurricane Milton last year.
Fort Myers Beach Vice Mayor Jim Atterholt was furious with the school district’s response to the funding letter.
“That’s one of the most contorted public statements I have ever seen in my 35 years of public service,” Atterholt said. “As a result of the contortion, the Town of Fort Myers Beach will request a litany of public documents from the school district.”
Atterholt said he met with McKannay last week to discuss the situation. The town began requesting public documents from the Lee County School District last week including whether the school district made a request to the state or FEMA to redirect or reallocate funds meant for the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School.
The town is also seeking a copy of the approval or response letter to redirect any funds.
Brass Tax
At the heart of the issue is how much money the school district received for repairs to Fort Myers Beach Elementary School, how much it spent, where the rest went and if any plans were changed since its application to FEMA for funding to repair the school.
Since repairs were completed to reopen Beach Elementary School in 2023, school district officials have stated the school district spent approximately $6 million on repairs to reopen the school. That is the amount the school board for the School District of Lee County approved in 2023 to demolish the outer buildings around the historic school and to reopen the school. The school was reopened in December of that year.
The award letter from FEMA last month details “damage to 12 buildings of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School” from Hurricane Ian.
The letter states: “A 50 % Rule analysis was performed for the six (6) main buildings with a result ratio above 50%, making them eligible for replacement. In response, the applicant will utilize contracts to replace the 6 main buildings, and repair the 6 ancillary buildings to restore this facility to its pre-disaster design, function and capacity within the existing footprint per applicable codes and standards. Work to be completed for the replacement buildings will include removing and furnishing existing foundation, exterior walls, beam roof structure, windows, doors, interior partitions, interior finishes, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, fire alarm, sprinkler, and communications systems, stairs and elevators. Work to be completed for the buildings to be repaired will include the removal and replacement of all damaged components. This project entails a fixed cost offer. A cost estimating format (CEF) has been created using RS means software. Potential mitigation was discussed but the applicant will not pursue mitigation opportunities for this project. An insurance reduction was applied to this project. No prior Obtain and Maintain (O&M) requirement was found. An O&M requirement will be mandated in the total amount of $19,255,986.38 for the buildings. Total project cost is $19,546,275.07 (CEF) less $6,941,359.49 (Insurance Reduction) = $12,604,915.58 funded at a 90% federal cost share = $11,344,424.03.”
Town of Fort Myers Beach officials are now requesting documents from the School District of Lee County for how funds were spent to reopen Fort Myers Beach Elementary School after Hurricane Ian and where any leftover funds were used, or if the school district instead either chose to use those funds for other purposes or informed FEMA of changes in its plans.
“The fact that we even need to make public records requests speaks to the absurdity of the situation,” Atterholt said.
Atterholt had been working closely with an ad-hoc committee of parents meeting with School District of Lee County officials since Hurricane Milton on reopening Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. That process broke down in the spring when Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin ordered a consultant who was on retainer, to study the future of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. The school district had hired consultants in 2023 to review construction projects as part of a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract that was extended earlier this year.
What followed was a largely one-sided report presented to the School District of Lee County Board advocating for the closure of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School as a public school. The report was largely dismissed by Fort Myers Beach civic and business leaders for its lopsided view of the school’s future and inaccuracies. The report led to a letter from the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce to the school district castigating the consultants.
Among the questionable narratives in the report was a suggestion that it would take at least $7 million to reopen Fort Myers Beach Elementary School, a figure far removed from the $1.3 million baseline figure school district officials had originally made.
In comparison, the school district’s tearing down of multiple outer buildings at the elementary school after Hurricane Ian, and repairs which required far more extensive work on the historic building from much deeper damage than anything Hurricane Milton brought, cost just $6 million. The reopening of the school now wouldn’t require any tearing down of any buildings and would be just a fraction of the repair work done after Hurricane Ian. After Hurricane Ian, the historic building’s rooms and hallways were stripped down and gutted.
According to figures provided by the school district in June, Hurricane Helene resulted in more than $163,000 in damage to the school, while Hurricane Milton resulted in $641,000 in remediation and stabilization costs. Insurance has reimbursed the school district $414,000 as of June.
Since the consultant’s report to the school board that month, the process to reopen the school has stalled with students being moved to Heights Elementary School. There has been discussions of possibly turning the public school into a charter school, something that was not supposed to begin being discussed for two more years if enrollment didn’t pick up, under the terms of an interlocal agreement between the school district and the town which was signed after Hurricane Ian as part of reopening the school.
Fort Myers Beach Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization Vice President Monica Schmucker said the school district is in violation of the agreement for not having built the cafeteria that was required to be constructed this year. The one-year delay in reopening school should extend the interlocal agreement an additional year to 2028, she said.
Schmucker said that the district’s request for FEMA aid requires them to be specific about how they use the funds. If they changed their minds about how to use those funds, a specific request to re-direct the funds would have been made.
Schmucker said parents on the ad-hoc committee had been told by the school district by officials that they couldn’t count on FEMA aid to reopen the school and to build a new cafeteria. Schmucker said the aid letter and the district’s response to it shows the money was there.
“It’s insulting. They (the school district) really just confirmed they had the money all along,” Schmucker said.
The $11.3 million award for the estimated $20 million project, would appear to leave millions of dollars left over after the $6 million project to reopen the school after Hurricane Ian. In addition, the school district received $3.8 million in insurance for the loss of much of the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School campus. However, the $3.8 million insurance figure reported by the district differs from the $6.9 million insurance reduction figure cited in the award letter and which estimates a $20 million project that is far more than the district has said it spent on the school. All those figures are now all open questions,
For Schmucker, the questions now are what happened to the funds the district received on its loan from the state to do the work and what did the school district tell FEMA abiout those plans.
The office of Gov. Ron DeSantis referred questions about the Florida Loan Program that the school district referred to, back to the Florida Department of Transportation which runs the loan program. Spokespersons for the Florida Department of Transportation did not return messages seeking comment.
Second school district response:
Following the announcements by Allers and the town regarding the $11.3 million award letter, the School District of Lee County issued a second detailed response to the statements by Allers and questions from the town by saying the award letter from FEMA to repair or rebuild Fort Myers Beach Elementary “does not equate to additional funding to the School District of Lee County.”
According to the statement, the school district took advantage of the Legislative Appropriation Program (LAP) to access loans after Hurricane Ian in advance of funding through the FEMA Public Assistance Program to aid Hurricane Ian recovery and repair. The district received a $55 million loan to cover cleanup, recovery, and repairs at 35 school sites, which included Fort Myers Beach Elementary.
As part of receiving the loan, the district was required to reimburse funds or “awards received” to repay the state loan, the district said in its statement.
“The school district filed claims for Fort Myers Beach Elementary under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Act, Section 428, to preserve the flexibility to use any LAP funds while discussing the school’s future under the terms of the Interlocal Agreement with the Town of Fort Myers Beach,” the school district said in a statement. According to the district, if the project turns out to cost less than the loan, the district can use the remaining funds for “cost-effective activities that reduce the risk of future damage, hardship, or suffering from a major disaster; and (ii) other activities to improve future Public Assistance operations or planning.”
The district hasn’t yet detailed how it spent the remaining funds.
Dr. Carlin did not respond to requests for an interview.
“This FEMA Public Assistance strategy was designed to maximize how the School District might best fulfill its mission of serving more than 100,000 students,” the school district’s statement said. “The School District has submitted a claim worth $187 million to FEMA, which covers repairs to over 100 locations. The total amount FEMA has validated to date is $128 million, a difference of $59 million. The School District of Lee County has only received $12.8 million from FEMA. These funds were used for the immediate clean-up of school sites and debris removal. The remaining School District FEMA projects are advancing through the FEMA review process.”
School district delays prevent school from reopening after Milton
After the consultant’s report was presented to the school board in June, there still seemed to be some support amongst school board members for reopening Fort Myers Beach Elementary School. School board member Armor Persons called for building a new school, while he has since also suggested a charter school to replace the public school. Bill Ribble, whose district includes Fort Myers Beach, has said he would like to see a new school be built there, while also saying he has been in talks with an unnamed potential supporter of a charter school there. Ribble has not disclosed details of the talks. School Board Chair Samuel Fisher has expressed hesitancy at putting more funds into the existing school though he has also said he hasn’t ruled it out.
The more time that has gone by since the delays has led to the population of the school tumbling. The school had approximately 80 students before Hurricane Ian, which dropped to 50 after Hurricane Ian as students were sent to San Carlos Park Elementary School.
After the Fort Myers Beach Elementary School reopened, the population had bounced back to more than 70 students before Hurricane Milton shuttered the school again. The last numbers provided by the school indicated 39 students were now attending the school since the moves to San Carlos Park Elementary and now to Heights Elementary.
Frustrated by delays by Carlin in reopening the school and concerned about the pending consultant’s report, Atterholt led the passage of a resolution by the town council in May to call on its attorney and manager to meet with school district staff in order to enforce the interlocal agreement to keep the school open.
Atterholt said his frustration has only grown since then.
“The school district is obfuscating the situation to the point where the Town of Fort Myers Beach has reached extreme frustration,” Atterholt said. “It’s time for the school district to let the people know the facts and get the Beach School open,” he said.
The Fort Myers Beach Elementary School has long had the smallest budget of any school in the school district, operating at $1.7 million before Hurricane Ian and at figures at about $1.5 million before Hurricane Milton.
According to statistics cited by Allers, Fort Myers Beach taxpayers contribute approximately $29 million a year to the School District of Lee County.
The School District of Lee County said in the statement posted on the district’s website that official look forward “to the continued collaboration with the Town of Fort Myers Beach to work within the framework of the interlocal agreement and determine the best path forward for Fort Myers Beach Elementary.”
Schmucker said the community had volunteers willing to clean up the school for free, which could have reopened the school by now.
“They think we are going to get fatigued and go away,” Schmucker said. “They need to fulfill their obligation to us.”
Atterholt said he found it “absurd they can’t put a plan together” to reopen the school. He said he didn’t understand the delays. “The people of Lee County saw what Fort Myers Beach went through. There is no grassroots political pressure against it.”
Fort Myers Beach Observer Editor Nathan Mayberg can be reached at NMayberg@breezenewspapers.com