By: Watson S.B. No. 921
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to the creation and administration of a disaster recovery
fund.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Chapter 418, Government Code, is amending by
adding Subchapter I to read as follows:
SUBCHAPTER I. DISASTER RECOVERY FUND
Sec. 418.201. PURPOSE; INTENT. It is the intent of the
legislature that in recovering from a disaster, the first recourse
of state and local governmental entities and volunteer
organizations should be to the money regularly appropriated to
those entities or money received by those entities from other
sources in the normal course of operations. Assistance grants
provided under this subchapter are intended to mitigate
extraordinary burdens of state or local governmental entities and
volunteer organizations in relation to available resources.
Sec. 418.202. DEFINITION. In this subchapter, "fund" means
the disaster recovery fund account.
Sec. 418.203. DISASTER RECOVERY FUND ACCOUNT. (a) The
disaster recovery fund is an account in the general revenue fund to
be administered by the division. Money in the fund may be
appropriated only for a grant awarded under this subchapter.
(b) The fund consists of:
(1) money credited, appropriated, or transferred to
the fund at the direction of the legislature;
(2) federal money credited, appropriated, or
transferred to the fund; and
(3) gifts and grants contributed to the fund.
Sec. 418.204. USE OF MONEY IN DISASTER RECOVERY FUND. The
division may award from the fund a grant to a state or local
governmental entity or a volunteer fire department that
participates in disaster recovery in an area where the governor has
declared a state of disaster to assist in the payment of the
entity's costs incurred for its recovery efforts. Money granted
from the fund may be used only for:
(1) a nonfederal match required for a Federal
Emergency Management Agency qualifying project;
(2) a disaster recovery project to remedy the public
damage and direct loss incurred as a result of a disaster; and
(3) reimbursement of the entity for costs incurred by
compensating its employees for disaster recovery-related
activities that are performed in response to the disaster and that
are outside of the scope of the employees' normal duties.
Sec. 418.205. APPLICATION FOR GRANT FROM DISASTER RECOVERY
FUND. The division shall develop and implement rules, procedures,
and an application process for an entity to request a grant from the
fund. An application for a grant must include:
(1) a description of the purposes for which the
applicant is requesting the grant assistance;
(2) an estimated amount of the cost of the relevant
damages sustained by the applicant as a result of the disaster,
based on a preliminary damage assessment conducted by the applicant
or other relevant information;
(3) a certification of the applicant's exhaustion of
local effort, including evidence of an applicant's uninsured
losses, anticipated revenues and expenditures, and projected
losses in local revenue as a result of the disaster;
(4) evidence that the applicant is located in a county
for which the countywide loss threshold has been exceeded because
of the declared disaster, as calculated using the Federal Emergency
Management Agency's countywide per capita impact indicator; and
(5) evidence that the applicant has staff, policies,
and procedures in place adequate to administer the grant.
Sec. 418.206. POST-APPLICATION PROCEDURES. (a) On receipt
of an application requesting a grant from the fund, and before
awarding money in response to the application, the division shall:
(1) substantiate the damage estimate provided by the
applicant;
(2) review the emergency management program and plan
in the jurisdiction where the applicant is located;
(3) review the information on the staff, policies, and
procedures in place to administer the grant submitted by the
applicant; and
(4) verify that the program, plan, staff, policies,
and procedures in place to administer the grant are adequate.
(b) The division shall prioritize grants and select grant
recipients based on information provided by the applicants, other
information available to the division, and criteria adopted by the
division.
Sec. 418.207. REIMBURSEMENT OF FUND. (a) If an entity
receives a grant from the fund and subsequently receives
reimbursement from the federal government, an insurer, or another
source for the costs for which the grant was awarded, then the
entity shall reimburse the fund.
(b) The division shall prescribe accounting and other
procedures as necessary to ensure that the fund is reimbursed as
provided by Subsection (a).
SECTION 2. This Act takes effect immediately if it receives
a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as
provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution. If this
Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this
Act takes effect September 1, 2015.