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ALBANY -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency may want to buy your home. At least if it has been destroyed by flooding in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene and if it has been damaged before.

State and federal officials are likely to announce the start of FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Program for Irene. The government would buy and tear down homes in chronically flood-prone areas. Participants must agree not to rebuild.

While there's no timetable for the plan, state officials want to get started soon as flood-ravaged areas continue to rebuild and as officials scrutinize damaged homes or buildings that have been flooded before.

"We expect that pretty shortly the state will announce it," said William Peat Jr., a spokesman for the State Emergency Management Organization.

To participate, local governments such as villages or counties must opt in. They would then sponsor individual homeowners who apply to have FEMA purchase and pay for their homes to be torn down.

Even though state and federal officials are still discussing details of the possible buyouts, Gov. Andrew Cuomo mentioned it during a news conference earlier in the week.

"One of the programs is a buyout program. You can have some people who decide they don't want to rebuild. I have had conversations with people who say this is the second, third time I've been flooded," Cuomo said. "The federal government is reimbursing for the cost of that house because that house shouldn't have been there in the first place."

Typically, FEMA will pay 75 percent of the value of a home.

"They bought me out and I rebuilt," Bill Ansel-McCabe, the mayor of Middleburgh, said of a previous buyout aimed at removing flood-prone homes. He said about a half-dozen homes have in past years been removed in his Schoharie County village.

Like other municipal officials, Ansel-McCabe said it was too early to say if his community would participate in this upcoming round of buyouts.

For now, residents of flooded communities were still focusing on recovery efforts -- shoveling mud, drying out basements and salvaging damaged structures -- to ponder long-term changes.

"It's a possibility but it's way to early," Schoharie Village Mayor John Borst said of whether they would participate in a buyout. "That is a long-term permanent solution."

Moreover, once a property is purchased and the land cleared, it goes off the tax rolls, which means less revenue for municipalities.

"You are going to lose that taxable assessment. That property can never be used for anything again," said Tom Scozzafava, supervisor of Moriah, a town along Lake Champlain that experienced flooding both from Irene and during the spring.

Taking a building out of commission is doubly complicated in his town, which lies inside the Adirondack Park, due to strict regulations and restrictions on building outside municipal boundaries, he said.

There are emotional attachments as well. "Some family homes go back generations," said Tracy McGuinness, who is repairing her house in Schoharie -- one of about the 275 to sustain heavy damage. The entire village has about 350 properties.

Still, the concept of a buyout is to improve not just safety -- since living in flood-prone areas can be dangerous -- but economics as well.

Officials fear buildings might be abandoned or become derelict if they are destroyed but their owners can't afford repairs.

Either way, details about a FEMA buyout are stalled by the congressional battle over federal funding, which has prompted criticism from Cuomo.

The governor on Thursday urged Democrats and Republicans to come together on a bill that would provide FEMA with enough money for flood relief. "We don't need them to be playing their politics on this issue," Cuomo said during a visit to a Hudson Valley farm.

As of Friday afternoon, the Senate has tabled a Republican-led House bill would have continued funding for the federal government and given $3.65 billion to FEMA.

Senate Democrats say FEMA should get $7 billion and they want to separate that funding from a measure to keep the rest of the government operating. Some House Republicans have maintained the cost of flood relief would need to be offset by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.

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