CORPUS CHRISTI, TX — The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has officially agreed to pay back all of the over half a million dollars that the Nueces County Hospital District had been fighting for.
As a bit of a refresher, the five hundred and three thousand dollarswas paid by the hospital district for a study back in 2021, titled Health Equity in Nueces County Amid and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic. This study essentially looked into the overall impact of COVID-19 on individual communities.
6 Investigates was told by NC Hospital District and county officials that this request was made independently by former County Judge Barbara Canales without the support of the Commissioners Court.
According to the NC Hospital District, Canales had led them to believe it would be easy to get the money back from FEMA.
FEMA denied the request twice, but after they requested arbitration, FEMA finally sent a letter saying they will reimburse the Hospital District in full.
"We of course support KRIS TV in their assistance in talking to people for us. We also had Congressmen Cloud's office involved with us, and we had County Judge Connie Scott involved with us in helping us pursue receipt of the funds," Nueces County Hospital District CEO Jonny Hipp said. "The good thing is that we used the original payment to pay for the study from out general fund and luckily so far we haven't needed it, but it looks like the near horizon that we might need to have that given the issues that are going on."
The issues Hipp is referring to are the increased valuations of 2 refineries, Valero Energy and Flint Hills Resources, which will cause a revenue hit that the Hospital District and other taxing entities will see next year due to the increase.
Hipp told KRIS 6 reporters that the district does have some breathing room with cash reserves to handle all of their programs, including indigent care for now.
But having this money coming back into reserve has given them all a slight sigh of relief.
