A funding opportunity is available for hurricane repair and recovery projects within counties designated in the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster declarations for Hurricanes Ian and Nicole. Funds provided through this Program can provide resources for: mitigation of local and county revenue losses and operating deficits; infrastructure repair and replacement, including road, sewer, and water facilities; beach renourishment; and debris removal. The Division is authorized to approve requests for resources by local governments, independent special districts, and school boards, including charter schools. A local government may submit a request for resources to administer infrastructure repair or beach renourishment grants within the jurisdiction of the local government, provided that the grant program requires matching funds by grantees of at least 50 percent of project costs.

 

Projects for the mitigation of local and county revenue losses and operating deficits for jurisdictions will be considered when Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) funding from the Local Government Emergency Bridge Loan Program has been exhausted, or upon an applicant’s denial of funding from that program by the Department. DEO’s link is: www.floridajobs.org/community-planning-and-development/Small-and-Minority-Business-Resources/Small-and-Minority-Business-Programs/local-government-emergency-bridge-loan

 

Grant/Loan Management:

 

The Repair and Recovery Program for Hurricanes Ian and Nicole will be managed through the Division of Emergency Management Enterprise Solution (DEMES). The Division’s solution will have an application process and will, in some cases, require information to be submitted with the application. Examples of the additional information may include FEMA project worksheets, insurance claims, denials, determination memos, etc. The Florida Division of Emergency Management, in coordination with a contracted vendor, will provide four training sessions the week of June 5th. All trainings will be the same, you will only need to attend one session. This training will be conducted via webinar and a recording of the training will be available at https://www.floridadisaster.org/demes

 

Training dates:

June 6: 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM  Registration Link: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/c6bc6f73-2a2f-4c11-aa04-9fe698372d11@9ca75128-a244-4596-877b-f24828e476e2

June 6: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM     Registration Link: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/cf0caa4c-c392-473a-90f6-bbf62c437fa9@9ca75128-a244-4596-877b-f24828e476e2

June 8: 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM  Registration Link: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/235987f9-4bba-4501-9a80-2cf99ac74661@9ca75128-a244-4596-877b-f24828e476e2

June 8: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM     Registration Link: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/ee2d6301-1981-4b35-89e1-3f8d76bfc093@9ca75128-a244-4596-877b-f24828e476e2

 

The portal will open in DEMES on June 15 to start the application intake process.

 

Program funds will be provided as grants for projects shown to be ineligible for funding from any other sources. All other funds provided through the Program will be initially issued as loans to eligible recipients. It will be the duty of each loan recipient to seek funding from all sources for which a project may be eligible, including but not limited to any available insurance coverage and funding through the FEMA Public Assistance process, and recipients will be required to demonstrate that an earnest effort has been made to recover funds from those sources for eligible projects. Recipients will be required to repay all loans received through the Program, up to the amount of any indemnification payments or other federal assistance received for eligible projects. If any such receipts are less than the loan amount issued through the Program for an eligible project, the remaining loan balance will be converted to a grant equal to the amount not covered by the other fund sources.

Please note: beginning July 1, 2023 the Department of Economic Opportunity will become the Department of Commerce.