RALEIGH — A bill filed in the House takes aim at former Gov. Roy Cooper’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency, which has been struggling to fulfill its role in recovery efforts for Hurricanes Matthew and Florence.
House Bill 222, the C.O.O.P.E.R. Accountability Act, was filed Feb. 26 by Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Columbus). The bill would appropriate funds for certain hurricane disaster recovery while implementing strict oversight measures over the Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR).
“After years of mismanagement under Gov. Cooper, we’re taking action,” wrote Jones in a post on X. “This bill directs $217M to finish Hurricane Matthew and Florence home repairs, with strict oversight and accountability. No more excuses. Just results.”
The bill would allocate $217 million to NCORR to complete homeowner recovery projects for Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, plus $1.5 million to the Office of the State Fire Marshal for emergency operations center supplies and equipment.
Under the bill, NCORR would be required to prioritize establishing a memorandum of understanding with the Housing Finance Agency to retrieve eligible funding for recovery programs and mandates the reevaluation of all people deemed ineligible for assistance within the past 180 days.
The bill would establish monthly and bimonthly reporting and auditing requirements for NCORR, limit the governor’s power to reallocate the funds and require recipients to seek alternative funding sources before using state funds.
The State Auditor’s Office (OSA) is looped in on NCORR’s reporting and would be directed to produce data for the legislature.
OSA would also be tasked with conducting periodical financial and performance audits of the Division of Emergency Management and Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina (GROW NC). Additionally, OSA would create a public online dashboard comparing appropriated funds with actual expenditures.
The Office of State Budget and Management would also be required to perform ongoing financial monitoring of NCORR for the duration of its operations.
Any unspent funds would revert to the Savings Reserve by June 30, 2027, and the bill would remove NCORR’s responsibility for administering Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery awards for future federally declared disasters.
NCORR’s lack of progress in getting families back into their homes following Hurricanes Matthew and Helene have been the subject of multiple legislative oversight hearings over the past two years.
In a hearing held at the end of January, NCORR acting chief Pryor Gibson was grilled for more than four hours regarding NCORR’s budget gap and continued inability to finish over 1,150 homes for victims of Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, the first of which occurred more than eight years ago.
During that hearing, Jones repeatedly pressed Gibson for home completion dates. Gibson told the lawmaker that he “will commit to getting every single home I can by (the end of) ’25” but could not promise at all 1,150 homes would be finished.
CAPTION: State Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Columbus), pictured last June, filed the C.O.O.P.E.R. Accountability Act at the end of February. (Makiya Seminera / AP Photo)
