Bryan sought more HUD disaster funds for Virgin Islands power grid and recovery costs

Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. met with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson in Washington, D.C., to seek changes in federal disaster-recovery funding for the U.S. Virgin Islands, Government House said on April 17, 2019.

According to the administration, Bryan asked HUD to increase the territory’s share of a $2 billion congressional appropriation for electric-grid modernization in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to $350 million from an initial $67 million allocation.

The funds were appropriated through the Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery program as part of an $89 billion disaster-relief bill passed in 2018, with allocation decisions left to HUD.

Bryan also raised the territory’s need for local matching funds to access FEMA Public Assistance grants. Government House said the Virgin Islands could need as much as $400 million in local matching funds to draw as much as $4 billion in FEMA grants, and had already set aside $169 million from the first two tranches of its CDBG-DR allocation for that purpose.

He asked HUD to allow CDBG-DR funds to be used for matching purposes in a third tranche and proposed creating a revolving fund using CDBG-DR money to pay upfront costs for FEMA-approved projects, with FEMA reimbursements used to replenish the fund.

Bryan also asked HUD to use environmental assessments completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to speed three dredging projects in the territory that Government House said were delayed by pending reviews from another government entity.

Official source: https://www.vi.gov/governor-bryan-working-with-hud-secretary-ben-carson-on-increased-funding-for-electric-grid-other-improvements-under-cdbg-dr/