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Office of Disaster Recovery: officials project hundreds of millions in FY2026 disaster spending, push to speed contracts
Summary
The Office of Disaster Recovery told the budget committee it expects to spend a conservative $643.5 million of obligated disaster recovery funds in FY2026 and urged rapid contracting to meet federal timetables while flagging the need to accelerate annual spending to roughly $2 billion to move the larger recovery program forward.
Adrian Williams Octalin, director of the Office of Disaster Recovery, told the Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance that the office expects to obligate and spend a substantial portion of disaster recovery funding in FY2026 but that executing large construction projects will require an aggressive contracting schedule.
“The expenditures come as the projects progress,” Williams Octalin said. She added that hospitals, schools and other large projects will have multi-year construction timelines, and that the ODR’s FY26 projection of $643.5 million is conservative but achievable if contracts move promptly from preconstruction to construction.
Williams Octalin told the committee that rebuild planning now has significant project volumes out to bid. She said the office expects the bidding process for Roy Lester Schneider and the Huang F. Lewi hospitals to close in mid-June and noted the administration has bundled certain solicitations to expedite procurement. In one solicitation the office extended the deadline to June 20 for two major hospital projects bundled together.
The director said the territory must accelerate spending on mitigation and recovery work; to meet the larger recovery timetable for billions in federal awards the territory will need to ramp expenditures to roughly $2 billion a year, she said. ODR officials said routine project milestones — design, permitting, preconstruction and contracting — generate invoices before visible construction begins, so expenditures will appear on financial reports in advance of major on-site construction.
ODR officials also noted that different federal grant programs have different administrative rules. Some federal funders allow project closeouts even when new spending freezes are in place; others pause disbursements pending additional documentation. That variation affects whether contractors already in contract can be paid and whether project timelines can be sustained when federal agencies issue pause notices.
The committee asked ODR for updated schedules and bidding information. ODR agreed to provide bidders’ lists, solicitation timelines and the agency’s estimate of obligated versus unobligated recovery and mitigation funds for FY2026.
