Bryan sought Biden waiver of local FEMA match for hurricane recovery funds

Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. sent a letter to President Joseph Biden on January 25, 2021, asking him to waive the Virgin Islands' local cost-share requirement for remaining federal hurricane recovery funding tied to the 2017 storms.

Government House said the territory was required to pay a 10% local match on FEMA Public Assistance funding and that the lack of available local funds was slowing access to an estimated $4 billion to $5 billion for approved recovery projects.

According to the administration, the Virgin Islands had been approved to use Community Development Block Grant-Disaster funds to cover the local share, but doing so would divert more than $600 million from other approved recovery projects. The administration said Congress had appropriated more than $8 billion in disaster aid for the territory after Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

In the letter, Bryan said waiving the match would allow those CDBG-Disaster funds to be redirected to economic revitalization, infrastructure resilience and affordable housing projects while the territory continued to face the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Official source: https://www.vi.gov/governor-bryan-requests-waiver-from-president-biden-from-local-match-for-fema-hurricane-funding/