[StBernard] Web Portal Tracks More Than $9 Billion in Infrastructure Funds Invested in Rebuilding Louisiana

[Westley Annis]

Web Portal Tracks More Than $9 Billion 
in Infrastructure Funds Invested 
in Rebuilding Louisiana

BATON ROUGE, La. - As Louisiana continues its recovery from four hurricanes in three years, the state has launched rebuild.louisiana.gov <http://lra.louisiana.gov/action.cfm?md=emaillist&task=addMessageClickThru&msgid=693&uid=kVeOe%7DlP&encoded=1&redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Erebuild%2Ela%2Egov%2F> , a searchable Web site aimed at shining a light on infrastructure investments across its parishes.

Working together, the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the Office of Community Development's Disaster Recovery Unit and the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, developed the tool to track more than $9 billion in funding set aside for rebuilding the state's infrastructure.

As of its launch, the site tracks 1,270 "applicants," usually government agencies, which have 16,237 infrastructure projects for a total of almost $9.1 billion in funds. It includes data from hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, Ivan and Cindy. In total, almost $5.2 billion has been invested so far in infrastructure alone, with a total of 57 percent of funds paid.

"It is important for the people of Louisiana and elsewhere to be able to track recovery dollars invested in repairing our lost infrastructure and improving public facilities," said Paul Rainwater, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "Each day we are restoring our roads and buildings, recreating our school systems and university campuses and strengthening our communities, and rebuild.louisiana.gov <http://lra.louisiana.gov/action.cfm?md=emaillist&task=addMessageClickThru&msgid=693&uid=kVeOe%7DlP&encoded=1&redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Erebuild%2Ela%2Egov%2F>  is a resource for citizens as we move forward in our redevelopment of Louisiana."

"This is an effort to show transparency and have accountability where these dollars are being spent as we continue to rebuild our great state," said GOHSEP Director Mark Cooper.

The two main sources of data for rebuild.louisiana.gov are also the major sources of federal recovery funds in the state. They include:

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	FEMA Public Assistance funds, which are dollars that public and nonprofit entities, usually local governments, use in the aftermath of major disasters to fund emergency work and repair damaged buildings. GOHSEP administers these funds, using the Express Pay System, which typically reimburses PA applicants within five to eight days of a request for payment.
	
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	Community Development Block Grant funds (CDBG), which is a pool of around $1 billion dollars set aside for infrastructure repairs through the Long Term Community Recovery program, the Fisheries Infrastructure program, the Local Government Infrastructure program and the Primary and Secondary Education program, all of which are run by the Office of Community Development's Disaster Recovery Unit. Currently, the site tracks only CDBG funds related to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

FEMA PA funds typically address the majority of infrastructure rebuilding needs after a disaster. Louisiana is using a portion of its overall $13.4 billion in post-Katrina and -Rita CDBG funds for infrastructure projects to cover work that is not eligible for FEMA reimbursement and address the longer-term infrastructure rebuilding needs of parishes, municipalities and other government entities.

Based on current funding, St. Bernard Parish is the largest FEMA PA applicant in the state, with more than $803 million in funding obligated by FEMA, of which it has spent more than $543 million, 68 percent of its funds, and more than any other PA applicant in the state so far. This includes funding for infrastructure repair and emergency work performed after the storms; future changes to the site will allow users to separate PA funding into "emergency work" and "permanent rebuilding work" categories.

The Recovery School District, the City of New Orleans, the St. Bernard Parish School Board and the Division of Administration's Office of Facility Planning and Control are the next highest applicants for FEMA PA funds. In total, these five applicants represent more than $2.8 billion in more than 3,400 infrastructure rebuilding projects, of which more than $1.7 billion has been spent. Based on FEMA actions on a number of projects in dispute or being reworked, obligations for an entity could increase dramatically.

So far, the state has approved the use of more than $650 million in CDBG funds for infrastructure projects, all of which are at various stages of completion. Orleans Parish is the largest applicant in the CDBG infrastructure program, with the state having obligated more than $336 million of Orleans' $411 million in CDBG funds on 76 projects. Of the local applicants, the Recovery School District has spent the most CDBG funds so far, investing 75 percent of its $80 million allocation from a program designed for school systems.

Developed by GCR and Associates for the state, rebuild.louisiana.gov <http://lra.louisiana.gov/action.cfm?md=emaillist&task=addMessageClickThru&msgid=693&uid=kVeOe%7DlP&encoded=1&redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Erebuild%2Ela%2Egov%2F>  users can sort data by storm, funding source, category of work being completed, entity completing the work or project title. The site also tracks the percentage of work an applicant has completed. The site's data is updated regularly, but not in real time, to provide an up-to-date snapshot of spent funds.

Future upgrades to the site will group projects by legislative districts and neighborhoods, add other infrastructure-related funding sources and provide summary charts and graphs.

Created in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita in 2005, the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) is the coordinating and planning body leading the most extensive rebuilding effort in American history. The central point for hurricane recovery in Louisiana, the LRA works closely with the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) and partners with state and federal agencies to oversee more than $20 billion worth of programs, speed the pace of rebuilding, remove hurdles and red tape and ensure that Louisiana recovers safer and stronger than before.

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