NEW ORLEANS(RNS) The Archdiocese of New Orleans disclosed plans Tuesday (Dec. 15) to deploy $108 million in FEMA reimbursements from Hurricane Katrina to repair parish-based Catholic schools around the region, and to build a new $35 million campus for a girls’ high school on the West Bank.

The church also disclosed plans to build four community centers in New Orleans.

That has the effect of keeping some storm dollars in hard-hit New Orleans neighborhoods, even where there are no Catholic schools to repair.

The church said its plan shuffles millions of dollars around the region in a way that recognizes post-Katrina population shifts.

For example, because it will not reopen three of the four wrecked Catholic elementary schools it once ran in St. Bernard parish, the church will re-invest much less there than it received in FEMA reimbursements.

The same is true, to a lesser extent, in New Orleans, according to the archdiocese.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond released the data to a meeting of parish priests at Notre Dame Seminary Tuesday.

Civil authorities in the affected civil parishes were also getting the information Tuesday, said spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey McDonald.

The new figures provide an update on the catastrophic effects of Katrina, which damaged or destroyed 1,100 of the regional church’s 1,200 buildings and left it with an estimated $288 million in property damage, according to a 2008 church report.

Because it was severely underinsured for flood damage, only about 35 cents on the dollar was recoverable through insurance, the church said.

But a combination of downsizing the archdiocese to 108 parishes from 142, insurance reimbursements, an estimated $46 million in support from Catholics outside New Orleans, and FEMA reimbursements have put the smaller church on a stable footing, McDonald said.

FEMA’s contribution to the archdiocese’s recovery now stands at about $170 million, McDonald said. That figure includes not only rebuilding money committed but still to be spent, but dollars that were consumed years ago on evacuation, clean-up and other temporary expenses, she said.

The federal agency does not reimburse denominations for damage to places of worship. It does, however, offer compensation for damage to schools, nursing homes or other faith-based facilities.

The church’s accounting of expected or committed FEMA funds does not include money expected for the archdiocese’s network of subsidized housing, nursing homes or damage to facilities operated by its charitable arm, Catholic Charities, McDonald said.