As public work crews continue to clean up storm damage throughout Erie, Mayor Daria Devlin is looking to transfer funds to cover the cost of unexpected expenses.
The city of Erie has been in talks with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) since declaring a state of emergency.
However, no additional funding has been provided to help cover cleanup costs.
On Wednesday, Erie City Council will consider an ordinance to transfer $4 million from the city’s rainy day funds to help cover storm damage expenses.
“What we are doing now, is we need to allocate funding from our fund reserve,” said Mayor Devlin. “We need to allocate that funding so that we can get it into the general fund to pay the bills for all of this emergency work. We are tracking all of that work because it is our intent to submit those to PEMA, and ask PEMA for reimbursements.”
According to Mayor Devlin, the city has had to bring in emergency tree contractor S.St. George Enterprises of Fredonia, New York, to help remove trees and debris throughout the city.
As PEMA assesses the damage to determine what resources to provide the city, Mayor Devlin says the allocation of funds is necessary to cover the unexpected costs.
“It’s critical,” said Mayor Devlin. “This is not money we have in the general fund. This is not budgeted funds, and so of course we have to go to council and ask them to allocate money that was not budgeted so that we can get those things paid on time, and as I said, then make sure we do request for some reimbursement and we are feeling very confident that PEMA is going to come through with some emergency assistance for us.”
Erie City Council will consider the ordinance at their next meeting on Wednesday, at 6:30 p.m.