Cooper faces backlash from Tillis and lawmakers over management of disaster relief funds

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  • "State and federal leaders need to hear directly from Director Hogshead and Governor Cooper on how this appalling failure occurred on their watch, and there must be serious systematic changes to ensure North Carolina has a disaster office that is able to properly take care of disaster victims," said Tillis.

On Thursday, US Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC, piled on to legislative leaders’ criticism of Gov. Roy Cooper and his Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) for its last-minute request of $175 million in order to keep operating.

NCORR requires an additional 27% of its budget to continue operating, something Senate leaders recently learned ahead of returning to Raleigh to pass additional relief legislation on Thursday.

“For the last six years, I have been warning that Governor Cooper and NCORR were dropping the ball on distributing disaster relief to victims,” he said in a press release. “NCORR’s last-second announcement of a staggering $175 million shortfall for Matthew and Florence recovery confirms those concerns were justified.”

Earlier this week state lawmakers put the blame for the agency’s shortfall squarely at Cooper’s feet, who controls the NCORR. Cooper simultaneously called on the legislature to deliver a $4 billion relief package on Wednesday for hurricane victims in western North Carolina.

“This financial catastrophe is a direct result of top-down mismanagement from the agency,” legislative leaders said in a press release Wednesday. “Now, with only a few days’ notice, Gov. Cooper is asking the General Assembly for $175 million to clean up his mess.”

Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, accused NCORR leaders of repeatedly trying to cover up at the expense of hurricane victims. 

“Their attempts to hide problems rather than own up to their incompetence has resulted in a continuing disaster for hurricane victims,” said Berger. “Now, Gov. Cooper is asking for an additional $175 million with little to no time to evaluate the request. It’s past time for Gov. Cooper to take accountability for his six years of mismanagement and financial carelessness. I look forward to GovOps getting to the bottom of this astounding failure.”

On Thursday, both the House and Senate passed Senate Bill 743 unanimously, which now heads to Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk. In the second round of appropriations, $604 million will be appropriated from the state’s savings reserve, while an additional $40 million will come from the Office of State Budget and Management Disaster Relief Reserve, resulting in a total of $644 million. 

Tillis added that instead of working to actually fix the problem, Cooper’s office has always seemed more focused on attacking anyone who raises a hint of criticism over their failure to assist disaster victims. 

“It is scandalous that the Cooper Administration has failed thousands of North Carolina families, many of whom are still living in hotel rooms and still have no relief from storms that hit our state as long as eight years ago.” Tillis said.

Hurricane Matthew occurred in 2016, and Hurricane Florence in 2018.

The funds were originally provided to the state by the federal government as part of disaster assistance packages funded and passed by Congress. 

According to Joseph Harris, fiscal policy analyst at the John Locke Foundation, NCORR was created in 2018 primarily to oversee the distribution of $779.1 million in federal recovery funds, which were allocated to the state in response to Matthew and Florence.

“The NCORR apportioned most of the federal funds to repair and replace damaged homes. However, as of October 2024, approximately 1,600 hurricane victims are still displaced from their homes,” explained Harris. “Making matters worse, the agency faces a $175 million budget deficit. Republicans in the General Assembly have attributed the financial troubles to poor management, while agency representatives have blamed fluctuating construction costs.”

Tillis said that he and other North Carolina congressional lawmakers pressed the Cooper Administration for the last six years about the slow pace of spending on recovery and rebuilding efforts for Matthew and Florence.

In 2022, the Office of Inspector General released a report finding that NCORR could not provide reasonable assurance that $2.5 million of the $5.4 million of federal assistance reviewed by the Inspector General was spent properly.  

Tillis also said that he pressed NCORR director Laura Hogshead for answers on the rebuilding process this past May, but nowhere in her response from June did she indicate that NCORR was facing such a massive shortfall of the funding originally allocated by Congress.

Instead, she stated: “NCORR stands prepared to complete the homes of its current applicants and to respond quickly to any future disasters.”

Hogshead has been a fixture at Joint Legislative Hurricane Response and Recovery Subcommittee hearings over the past two years, including in March 2023, December 2022, and September 2022.

Laura Hogshead, director of NCORR, at Hurricane Response and Recovery subcommittee meeting, Dec. 14, 2022.

Her testimony was much of the same each time she appeared before the subcommittee, including in March 2023 when she replied to Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, about notifying applicants of the priority process for getting people back into their homes. “You have my word on that, and your staff has been briefed on this.”

Jackson said, “Well, nothing personal about what I’m fixing to say, but based off of prior history, your word is not worth a whole lot.”

The subcommittee will meet again next month to get a better understanding of the agency’s financial status and why the information was hidden from the legislature until right before it returned to pass the second Hurricane Helene recovery package.

Tillis pointed out the difficulty this creates for North Carolina’s congressional delegation as they work to to secure needed federal assistance for Helene victims, saying their congressional colleagues will look at the Cooper Administration’s failure to get federal assistance in the hands of Matthew and Florence victims. 

“The next Governor must turn the page on the systemic incompetence and mismanagement of North Carolina’s disaster rebuilding efforts: the thousands of families who lost their homes to Helene certainly deserve better,” he said. “While the NCGA is right to provide NCORR with some funding to keep operations running, state and federal leaders need to hear directly from Director Hogshead and Governor Cooper on how this appalling failure occurred on their watch, and there must be serious systematic changes to ensure North Carolina has a disaster office that is able to properly take care of disaster victims.”

Tillis is also urging Congress to quickly pass a Disaster Recovery Package to include replenishing the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan fund, which has already run out of money.

“The fact is, the federal disaster response and recovery process is broken and many Americans understandably have concerns,” he said. “First, there are questions about prioritization. It was telling that in a 24-hour period in the wake of Helene, the Biden-Harris administration bragged about sending $100 million in transportation funding to rebuild roads in Western North Carolina as it also pledged $157 million in assistance to Lebanon. That is reflective of an administration that can’t read a room and doesn’t have its priorities in order.”

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