TOPEKA, Kansas (WIBW) – Shawnee County Emergency Management is looking for assistance in dealing with and cleaning up disaster debris.

The county requested a proposal for disaster debris management, removal and monitoring at the county commission’s weekly meeting on Thursday, August 22.

Once created, the proposal would create a contract for Shawnee County to work with certain contractors under Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regulations to provide such services following a disaster. Deputy County Councilman Kyle Edelman noted that the contracts would not incur any cost to the county until the contractor’s services are needed and activated.

The monitoring services will also work directly with FEMA to determine reimbursement eligibility.

“The biggest difference from what we’re seeing with this RFP (request for proposal) — it’s (on a much) larger scale, but specifically how they’re going about it,” said Dusty Nichols, Shawnee County Emergency Management Director. “FEMA changes their regulations ‘on a regular basis,’ and so these groups are in close contact and aware of those changes, but it’s also dealing with different types of debris, so there’s debris like forest debris, but in some cases there’s also engineering stuff or hazmat. These groups will step in once we determine the land that they can use and give that debris its own division. The monitoring service is actually a separate service. You have the people who prevent the debris and then the people who monitor it. The monitors are really critical to me because they’re the ones that go directly to FEMA so you can get your reimbursement.”

As for the chance of reimbursement, Emergency Management Director Dusty Nichols says it’s unlikely there will be any reimbursement from FEMA after this storm, but it still depends on the amount of damage done to the county.

“It obviously depends on the region. I mean, if we have enough damage and we reach the thresholds for compensation, that’s one thing,” Nichols said. “I haven’t seen a storm yet. I mean, we’ve been close to it and there might be compensation for the city like we’ve seen in the past, but most of these storms are not going to reach these levels. This type of storm where we would have to report this would almost certainly reach this level.”

The names of the contractors and when the county can reach an agreement with the contractors have not yet been announced.

The Department of Corrections has also been approved for grants of $5 million each for 2025 and 2026 from the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) to fund the construction project for the new mental health unit.

“This is the final step in securing the $10 million in grant funding from the state of Kansas to help us build our new mental health facility, which we have just begun construction on.”

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Behavioral Health Unit project at the Shawnee County Jail has taken place.

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