The Board of Estimate and Apportionment voted to approve the mayor's recommendations to deploy $18 million in emergency contracts from the city's tornado relief and recovery fund under Board Bill 31.

The board president read recommendations that cited "Board Bill 31, section 2, subsection 4 3, page 6, lines 20 through 22" as outlining the process by which $30,000,000 of "Grama 8 dollars" may be deployed. The mayor's office proposed specific awards totaling $18,000,000: $10,000,000 for the mayor's office (department 120) to fund community services; $2,000,000 for the mayor's office (department 120) to support resource hub operations; $5,000,000 for the Community Development Administration (department 142) for home repair; and $1,000,000 for the Department of Health (department 700) for community cooling and water hydration efforts.

President Green and Mayor Spencer both spoke in favor of moving the funds quickly through emergency procurement processes. "This is a really positive step forward in being able to get resources out to the community in an expedited manner," Green said. Green added that emergency contracts "will allow this money to get to the community faster." Mayor Spencer acknowledged staff involved in preparing the recommendations, saying, "Just an enormous lift on his end and his team to put this together," referring to Julian Nicks of the recovery office; Mayor Spencer also thanked Casey Milberg for work on legal components.

The board voted on item number 2 as presented; the clerk recorded ayes from Mayor Spencer, Comptroller Vanessa Behringer and President Green. The motion to adopt item number 2 passed unanimously.

Speakers noted a commitment to transparency about how funds are spent. Mayor Spencer said that although emergency contracts can move more quickly and offer less front-end transparency, "it's really critical that we are aligned in what we're doing with this, that we're sharing information as we move through this, and that we're all and remain committed to sharing, where these funds went at the end of the day with our citizens in a transparent manner." The transcript records comments from President Green that more rounds of awards may follow in coming months, weeks or years as recovery needs continue.

The transcript contains no recorded amendments or conditions to the allocations; the funding authorizations were presented as emergency contracts to be issued by the named departments in compliance with the referenced board bill and the city's emergency procurement processes.