The Texas General Land Office (GLO) will offer a one-year extension for existing infrastructure and mitigation contracts that submit a documented need, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham announced, according to a news release from the agency.
The agency said it can offer the extension only because it petitioned the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for one final extension of the 2017 Hurricane Harvey Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding. HUD approved the request, the GLO said, based on the agency’s track record of managing the funds.
“Since taking office nearly four years ago, I have repeatedly petitioned HUD for additional time on behalf of local communities,” Buckingham said in the release. “As the deadline for Hurricane Harvey projects approached, I submitted another request supported by the GLO’s performance record and my commitment to completing these critical projects. I am so excited to announce HUD leadership recognized the GLO’s progress and approved one final extension.”
The GLO explained that CDBG-DR and Community Development Block Grant Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) grants are allocated through HUD, which sets the federal requirements and deadlines for each allocation. Failure to comply with all regulations and deadlines can result in remaining funding being withheld or expended funding being recaptured, according to the release. The agency said previous requests for deadline extensions were rejected but that current HUD leadership approved the most recent petition.
The one-time extension also applies to more than $1.1 billion in disaster recovery and mitigation project funding allocated to Harris County, the release said. Buckingham sent Harris County a letter about the extension in which she expressed what the GLO called grave concerns about the county’s repeated failure to meet contract expenditure benchmarks.
“While HUD’s trust in the GLO’s has earned Harris County an additional extension, I will be clear. No more delays will be tolerated,” Buckingham wrote, according to the release. “The time for excuses and missed benchmarks is over. No more extensions, no more excuses, just get it done.”
The extension will be available for existing infrastructure and mitigation subrecipient contracts for the current contract scope as written and with demonstrated need, the GLO said. All projects must continue to comply with applicable federal regulations.
The agency said it has expended more than $10 billion in disaster recovery funding to date and has helped more than 14,000 Texans rebuild their homes. Information about the GLO’s disaster recovery and mitigation grants is available at recovery.texas.gov.