NDRC Update - June 2016
The State of California received $70,340,770 after applying for $117,000,000 

The Grant application included the following pillars: 
     •         Forest and Watershed Health – Lead Agency: Sierra Nevada Conservancy 
               Requested: $40,000,000 Received: $28,604,459 
     •         Community Resilience Centers- Lead Agency: Tuolumne County 
               Requested: $55,000,000 Received $19,755,000 
     •         BioMass Facility and Wood Products Campus- Lead Agency: Cal EPA 
               Requested: $22,000,000 Received $22,000,000

Recent Activities:
    • Late April 2016, County and State Officials met with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Staff to review the NDRC program and process.
    • On June 2, 2016, the NDRC award was official and a notice was published in the Federal Register regarding the NDRC grant award and requirements.
    • The State of California now has 30 days to submit a funding plan to HUD. This document outlines how the State will manage the grant.
    • Once the State’s Funding Plan is approved by HUD, which could take up to 45 days, the State will then submit a Plan of Action. This Plan of Action lists all the tasks and actions the State and its partners (County, USFS, Sierra Nevada Conservancy) need to accomplish. Once this Action Plan is approved by HUD, the State will then ask each of their partners to sign sub-recipient agreements. These agreements will be brought before their respective boards for consideration and approval. It is only after these agreements with the State are executed can the County go out and start working with the community on the approved NDRC project.
    • The County anticipates conducting community meetings this fall to solicit input from the public regarding programs and services to be provided in the community resiliency center. 

NDRC History and Process 

Summer of 2014 President Obama announced the National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC). The federal government allocated $1 billion towards this competition and invited communities that have experienced a natural disaster in the last three years to compete for funds to help them rebuild and increase their resilience to future disasters. It is the hope that this competition will support innovative resiliency projects at the local level while encouraging communities to adopt policy changes and activities that plan for the impact of extreme weather and climate change and rebuild affected areas to be better prepared for the future. 

Fall 2014, the Tuolumne County Administrator’s Office was contacted by State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), HUD’s State counter-part, and asked if the county was interested in participating in the National Disaster Resilience Competition due to the Rim Fire event.

In the State of California, there were a total of six counties eligible to apply for these funds. In December 2014, notification was given by HCD and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, that Tuolumne County had been selected as the one candidate the State of California was going to endorse to move on to Phase 1 of the National Disaster Resilience Competition.

Since this time, a core NDRC Team was put together to work on the NDRC application.  During this first phase, the core NDRC Team worked on: gathering information, soliciting input from both stakeholders and the public regarding potential projects, and talking with HUD consultants.

The core NDRC Team has met several times to pull all the information together that addressed the following items:

    • Rim Fire event and the impacts it had on Tuolumne County
    • Identified the targeted area and unmet needs as a result of the Rim Fire
    • Defined resiliency and the type of projects

The Phase I NDRC application was drafted and sent out for public review. Comments from the public were then reviewed and incorporated into the application. The NDRC application was finalized and submitted to HUD in March 2015 for their review and ranking.

In June 2015, HUD announced Tuolumne County will move on to the second phase of the NDRC process. 

NDRC applicants will have 120 days from the official notice of award to put together and submit a Phase II application. HUD then anticipates reviewing and ranking all of the applications and notifying entities of award by December 2015. Applicants will then have 2 years to complete all projects. 
  
If you are interested in hearing more about California’s NDRC Phase II application please plan on attending a meeting on Monday, August 17 in the Board of Supervisors Chambers, 2 South Green Street, Sonora, either at 1:30p.m. or 6:30 p.m.