Three years later, Katrina aid unspent

WHEN DISTRIBUTING money to communities in distress, the U.S. government frequently suffers from Goldilocks Syndrome. It either spends the money too quickly, with little oversight, or it spends it too slowly, leaving would-be beneficiaries entangled in heaps of red tape.

After more than three years, federal officials really need to get it juuust right for New Orleans and other communities hammered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

A new report from the long-hapless-but-presumably-reforming Federal Emergency Management Agency shows that two-thirds of the $5.8 billion pledged for hurricane relief in Louisana and Mississippi still hasn't been spent.

As a result, numerous schools, roads, sewer systems and other critical public structures damaged by the 2005 storms remain unreplaced or unrepaired.

"I think it can go better," James Stark, head of FEMA's efforts in the region, recently told USA Today. "That's almost obvious."

Actually, it's long past "almost." The Obama administration, in its eagerness to pass a massive economic stimulus package and generate new jobs, also needs to devote some attention to breaking the FEMA logjam on the Gulf Coast.

Caution was certainly warranted in distributing federal aid in the months after the storms, particularly in corruption-prone New Orleans and Louisiana. And haste makes waste, even in the best-run governments.

But, almost four years after Katrina and Rita struck, stringent oversight measures should be in place, and the federal aid should be flowing to the communities where it's needed. And if any portion of the allocation isn't needed, the money should be immediately shifted to the nation's other pressing priorities.