FLOOD RECOVERY
ALLIANCE SESSION

ET I 

:9 


Meeting Summary Outline of Unified Strategy

On November 7, 2017, GovernorJim Justice convened senior?level state and federal officials to
create a unified strategy regarding disaster recovery funds from the floods of 2016. The
discussion was the first in a series of senior level meetings to look at strategically aligning those
funds. The meeting was an important step in the creation of the strategy and empowered
appointed action officers to create a strategy to align and leverage the disaster funding.

 

 

The action officers were tasked to further explore options and bring recommendations to the
senior officials for approval. They will meet on a more regular basis to draft a unified strategy
for 2016 funds and delve into the roles and responsibilities of state departments and divisions.
This role will also support the establishment of the West Virginia State Resiliency Office (SRO).
All efforts combined will ensure that West Virginia becomes more resilient and continues to
take a unified and strategic approach to disaster recovery.

The facilitated discussion addressed five major topics:

Ranked Priorities

Guiding Principles

Reprioritization of Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) Applications
Reallocation of Community Development Block Grant -Disaster Recovery
(CDBG-DR) Funds

5. Role of Action Officers



Sections II through VI ofthis document provide more detail on each major topic and what was
agreed to during the Session. These sections can serve as the basis for a unified strategy
regarding 2016 flood funding. The final section (VII) proposes next steps for the senior
leadership group and the action officers.

Also included are two appendices: a list of Session attendees and detailed notes from the
proceedings.

ll. Ranked Priorities

Much of the morning session focused on the need to identify priorities for the State?s disaster
recovery funds from the June 2016 floods. The disaster marked the first time that West Virginia
received a allocation and it was the largest amount of HMGP funds ever received. Due
to the complexity of the situation, the meeting was convened to ensure that there was a
holistic strategy for the use of these recovery funds. The facilitator proposed overarching
priority areas based upon the functional areas where funds were already earmarked. This led to
a and detailed discussion regarding priorities. The resulting ranked priority areas were
identified, ranked and confirmed:

1. Infrastructure
2. Economic Development
3. Housing

ill. Guiding Principles

While determining priorities, participants discussed overarching ideas or principles that should
influence all decision making in the state. The prevalent theme in the discussion was ensuring
that funding decisions and recovery efforts should decrease risk over time and make
communities more resilient. It was decided that the group would use guiding principles to serve
as ?decision points? when looking at the merit of state funded projects, with three guiding
principles identified:

1. Resiliency
2. Mitigation
3. Job Creation

IV. Reprioritization of HMGP Applications

 

With the influx of disaster recovery funds, recovery programs have the potential to duplicate
efforts and even convolute the recovery process. Concerns were raised that both and
HMGP were allocating more funding towards housing recovery than the existing unmet need.
There was also discussion about needs in the other function areas. The West Virginia
Department of Homeland Security 8: Emergency Management (WV DHSEM) and the West
Virginia Department of Commerce (WV DOC) began meetings to discuss in part how to best
coordinate the two programs. As a result of these meetings and the Session, the WV DHSEM is
now looking at the reprioritization of grant applications and ways to streamline the
funding match, with agreement on the following: