With a flurry of executive orders and advisories, the Trump administration has left Connecticut and other states grasping for answers about their continued eligibility for emergency management funding and whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency is destined for an overhaul or the scrap heap. The state’s top public safety officials warned attendees at the annual Connecticut emergency management symposium Tuesday that the only certainty is that billions of dollars currently slated for emergency operations across the U.S. are under review by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “The last thing I want to do is stand up here today and sound any sort of alarm. But in our field, what we do as emergency managers, we plan and prepare. Normally, we’re planning and preparing for storms,” said William Turner, the state emergency management director. “Today we’re planning for a little bit different of a scenario.” Turner, who has overseen emergency management for the past three years, said that scenario is one in which the federal resources long relied upon by state and municipal agencies might not be readily available — or available at all.  The uncertainty is the product of messages from Washington, D.C., that have been  contradictory and indecipherably vague. A case in point is the clear warning that certain grant programs, including two that send $9 million annually to Connecticut for emergency planning and operations, are likely to be off limits to “sanctuary jurisdictions” at odds with the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign. And what are those jurisdictions? FEMA won’t or can’t say. “The big question we have is: What is the list of sanctuary cities you’re using?” Turner said in an interview. “And if that’s going to be like an automatic — ‘You’re a sanctuary city or state, and you’re not getting money’ — that’s the big question we have right now. Are we on that list? Are we going to get our money?” During Donald J. Trump’s first stay in the White House, his administration ultimately concluded that Connecticut’s Trust Act was not in conflict with federal immigration law. The state law essentially bars state and local law enforcement from acting as extensions of the federal government. There is no legal definition of a sanctuary city or state, and the Trump 2.0 administration has yet to offer a precise definition or provide a list of sanctuary jurisdictions — if, indeed, one exists. FEMA won’t say. “Everybody’s scared. No one wants to put anything in writing,” Turner said. Turner and his boss, Commissioner Ronnell Higgins of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, apologized for not having hard information for the audience at Camp Nett, a National Guard facility in Niantic, a village in East Lyme.  “We know that federal funds are in jeopardy and that our ability to plan for, recover and respond will be impacted,” Higgins said. “The threat, as we face a potential loss of millions of federal dollars in the state of Connecticut is very, very real.” Ronnell Higgins, the commissioner of emergency services and public protection, talking to Manisha Juthani, the commissioner of public health. Credit: mark pazniokas / ctmirror.org Higgins said they felt obligated to put their municipal partners on alert after the receipt of a confusing memorandum about grant disbursements and standards from the acting FEMA head, Cameron Hamilton, to Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security.  It was dated March 20 and included a color-coded chart of grants for non-government and government entities that were under various stages of review and which might be linked to immigration and diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Turner got a few questions from local officials about its meaning. Turner said most emergency management officials expected and even welcomed changes at FEMA. An executive order in January created a FEMA review council with a seemingly deliberate approach and timetable for change, which Cameron reiterated at a recent meeting with his state counterparts.  But 48 hours later, Noem raised the idea of eliminating FEMA. “What we do know is that there’s a strong push to reform FEMA, and a lot of state directors who I just had the chance to meet with last week in Washington are on the same page. Changes are needed. Disaster recovery from the federal perspective — it’s too expensive, it takes too long. We need to get money and resources into the disaster survivors’ hands quicker,” Turner said. “There’s a lot of areas where there could be improvement. We all agree on that, but burning the house down or doing away with FEMA completely is not the solution.” ...read more read less