County awarded more then $16M in state disaster relief grant money
By News-Argus Staff
Published in News on October 3, 2017 2:49 PM
Full Size
News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Wayne County Commissioners Joe Daughtery, left, and Ed Cromartie listen Tuesday morning as County Manager George Wood explains the $16.9 million the county has been awarded for Hurricane Matthew disaster relief.
Wayne County has been awarded $16.94 million over the next two years in federal Hurricane Matthew disaster funding.
It could be eligible for up to a total of $25.4 million over the next three years.
The award is through the state Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Relief program that is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
As such, at least 70 percent of the money will have to spent on housing for low-to-moderate-income families.
Wayne County commissioners voted unanimously during their Tuesday morning session to accept the award.
"This is roughly two years of a three-year commitment," County Manager George Wood said. "What the state came up with, and we are in agreement, is that we would do two of the three years -- so roughly two-thirds of the money and then come back toward the end of the second year and see if we will need to make any adjustments. Then they would award you the third year."
The initial $16.94 million would be budgeted over two years for:
• Infrastructure $2,858,558. This is for flood and drainage activities.
• Multi-family rental, $1,250,000.
• Neighborhood facilities, $1.1 million. This includes $700,000 for a new Seven Springs Fire Station. The county had applied for $1 million. Another $400,000 is for generators. The county had applied for $450,000.
• Housing recovery, $8,831,442. Rehabilitation costs are limited to $50,000 per unit.
• Administration, $400,000.
• Planning, $1 million.
• Economic development, $1.5 million. These activities will be administered by the state Department of Commerce.
Following the two-year period the state Division of Emergency Management will review the status of the county's program and budget to determine possible future allocation up to the $25 million total.
"The next step after we turn this in accepting it, they will send a memorandum of understanding which is basically the grant agreement, which has all of the stipulations in it," Wood said.
That will come back to the county for approval.
The county already is in the process of seeking requests for qualifications for a company to administer the programs.
"We don't have staff for (administering) Community Development," Wood said. "We contract that out. So we will need to contract this out for someone to administer this $16 million."
Currently the funding is broken down into broad categories, he said.
Specific projects will be looked at once an administrator has been hired, Wood said.
"At lot of this is going to be taking applications on low and moderate income, but it was primarily low and moderate income that were affected by the hurricane," Wood said. "So a lot of it will be people in that affected area."
The county already has a list of some of the low-to-moderate-income families, Wood said.