The Kenai Peninsula Borough will use nearly a quarter of a million dollars in federal grant funds to help provide emergency services to borough residents following assembly acceptance of the funds earlier this month.
Members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly during their Nov. 7 meeting unanimously voted to accept $243,000 that the borough received through the federal Emergency Management Performance Grant program.
The program is offered by the Federal Emergency Management Area in order to help states and other emergency management agencies implement the National Preparedness System. More than $355 million was made available through the grant program for federal fiscal year 2023, about $3.1 million of which went to Alaska. The State of Alaska administers the grant for municipalities.
The National Preparedness System and associated National Preparedness Goal aims to prepare communities for disasters and emergencies, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Kenai Peninsula Borough Emergency Manager Brenda Ahlberg wrote in an Oct. 26 memo to assembly members that the borough’s Office of Emergency Management applied for funding for both fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023. For both years, the borough received $243,000.
Ahlberg wrote that costs eligible to be reimbursed with the grant funds include those associated with public outreach, emergency planning, improvements to emergency response plans, updating borough mitigation plans and evacuation planning activities, among others.
Ahlberg told assembly members during a Nov. 7 Finance Committee meeting that the borough receives the grant annually and that the award requires a 50% funding match by the awardee. In the case of the Kenai Peninsula Borough, she said, the 50% match is built into the department’s annual operating budget.
More information about the federal Emergency Management Performance Grant can be found on FEMA’s website at fema.gov/grants/preparedness.
Reach reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at ashlyn.ohara@peninsulaclarion.com.
