St. Louis recovery office: $43.7M in GRAMA interest allocated; leadership says contracting delays are slowing spending

Jim Hill, chief recovery officer in the mayor’s Office of Recovery, told the St. Louis City Board of Aldermen Budget & Public Employees Committee on Jan. 8 that the city has allocated $43.7 million from GRAMA settlement interest toward tornado recovery and related programs.

Hill said $38.6 million of that amount has been awarded through the city’s ENA (exclusive negotiated agreement) process and “almost $22 million” has advanced into contracting, but only about $9 million of the $43.7 million has been recorded as spent. He described November and December as unusually slow for contract execution, citing a new Oracle contracting module, complex negotiations for large contracts and holiday staffing as contributing factors. “We have 428,000,000 total allocated, 124,000,000 from the city, a little over 200,000,000 from the federal government, and 103,000,000 from the state of Missouri,” Hill said in a presentation of the recovery budget breakdown.

Why it matters: Awarding a contract (ENA approval) allows many service providers to start work; invoices and monthly billing then drive the “spent” column. Hill emphasized that services in some programs began after ENA approval even while…