Poster Paper:
Mitigating the Tension Between Timely Assistance and Regulatory Compliance in Disaster Recovery: Lessons from the Cdbg-DR Program in New York State
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Columbia Ballroom (Washington Hilton)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Immediate federal responses to disasters are primarily led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA). Once the immediate crisis subsides, there often remain unaddressed longer-term recovery needs. At this stage, the U.S. Congress typically appropriates funding to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program to assist state and local governments with those unmet recovery needs. While CDBG-DR is a flexible and adaptable source of funds (Gotham, 2014), it is also characterized by burdensome requirements to ensure federal resources are directed to the most-deserving areas and most vulnerable groups. Therefore, managing CDBG-DR grants is often associated with a tension between speedy and efficient distribution of funds and ensuring full compliance with the program’s requirements. We focus on this tension and consider the efforts that New York State has made to alleviate it in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.
A primary criticism directed at CDBG-DR grantees is the perceived delay between when the disaster occurs and when awards are disbursed to the beneficiaries (Finger 2008; Green & Olshansky 2012; Gotham 2014). Implementation of recovery programs has often been stalled by miscommunication or lack of coordination between HUD and its grantees, further exacerbated by inexperienced staff (GAO 2009) and general ambiguity regarding the federal guidelines (Spader & Turnham 2014). Seven months after Superstorm Sandy made landfall, New York State made deliberate efforts to address challenges like these by establishing the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR) to centralize and coordinate the expenditure of HUD’s eventual $4.4 billion in CDBG-DR allocations to the state. We find that the establishment of a specialized office better facilitates inter-agency coordination and can enhance understanding of the regulatory frameworks necessary for timely drawdown of these funds. The office led the State’s efforts to receive the necessary HUD approval of its Action Plan and the succeeding amendments quickly, thereby accelerating the release of funds. Secondly, GOSR established comprehensive data sharing agreements with state and federal agencies early on, significantly helping the calculation of remaining unmet recovery needs – a key component of the CDBG-DR program. It also established a flexible, data-driven, set of systems adaptable to shifting policy directions and processes that are often characteristic of program design and delivery. More broadly, taking a conservative approach to initial assistance calculations allows for adaptation in the case of program design adjustments. Overall, the goal should be that possible policy modifications not result in shrinkage of the potential beneficiary pool, but rather expand it. Lastly, giving a strong role to shared-service units such as finance, research, policy, IT systems, and monitoring and compliance, enables better identification and navigation of the highly complex regulatory environment associated with CDBG-DR in a timely manner. They also contribute to the institutionalization of the CDBG-DR mechanisms into the state’s policy infrastructure, which is key considering the fact that the number of billion dollar disasters has tripled since the 1980s and is expected to grow further (Gotham, 2014).
A primary criticism directed at CDBG-DR grantees is the perceived delay between when the disaster occurs and when awards are disbursed to the beneficiaries (Finger 2008; Green & Olshansky 2012; Gotham 2014). Implementation of recovery programs has often been stalled by miscommunication or lack of coordination between HUD and its grantees, further exacerbated by inexperienced staff (GAO 2009) and general ambiguity regarding the federal guidelines (Spader & Turnham 2014). Seven months after Superstorm Sandy made landfall, New York State made deliberate efforts to address challenges like these by establishing the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR) to centralize and coordinate the expenditure of HUD’s eventual $4.4 billion in CDBG-DR allocations to the state. We find that the establishment of a specialized office better facilitates inter-agency coordination and can enhance understanding of the regulatory frameworks necessary for timely drawdown of these funds. The office led the State’s efforts to receive the necessary HUD approval of its Action Plan and the succeeding amendments quickly, thereby accelerating the release of funds. Secondly, GOSR established comprehensive data sharing agreements with state and federal agencies early on, significantly helping the calculation of remaining unmet recovery needs – a key component of the CDBG-DR program. It also established a flexible, data-driven, set of systems adaptable to shifting policy directions and processes that are often characteristic of program design and delivery. More broadly, taking a conservative approach to initial assistance calculations allows for adaptation in the case of program design adjustments. Overall, the goal should be that possible policy modifications not result in shrinkage of the potential beneficiary pool, but rather expand it. Lastly, giving a strong role to shared-service units such as finance, research, policy, IT systems, and monitoring and compliance, enables better identification and navigation of the highly complex regulatory environment associated with CDBG-DR in a timely manner. They also contribute to the institutionalization of the CDBG-DR mechanisms into the state’s policy infrastructure, which is key considering the fact that the number of billion dollar disasters has tripled since the 1980s and is expected to grow further (Gotham, 2014).
