The Villages District Office will be looking to insurance coverage and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for recovery of costs stemming from Hurricane Irma.
It looks unlikely that the bulk of the costs of funding the recovery effort will be coming from the pockets of residents.
“While the hurricane has passed and we are in cleanup mode, the other major amount of work taking place is documentation, documentation, documentation,” said District Manager Janet Tutt.
She indicated that insurance and FEMA should cover 97 to 98 percent of the costs incurred in the cleanup in The Villages.
In the short term, the individual community development districts will likely have to pay contractor cleanup costs. All of the districts have adequate finances and sufficient reserves, funded by maintenance assessment fees, to cover the costs, pending reimbursement by either insurance or FEMA, Tutt indicated.
Community Development District 6 Chair Sally Moss pointed to the infamous Groundhog Day tornado to caution that government reimbursement takes time.
“Those who were here during the tornado in 2007, know it can take a very long time to be reimbursed by FEMA,” Moss said.
