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 contract documents routed for final execution. He said the committee should judge progress on awards and ENAs as well as on spending: “We judge success by column 2,” he said, referring to the ‘awarded’ column in the recovery presentation.

Programs and activity: Hill reported program-level results and near-term needs: disaster case management and community health workers are active in the tornado zone, with 451 enrolled cases and more than 40 closed; crisis counseling and a hotline launched with state funding and a consortium called Show Me Hope; United Way is serving as fiscal manager for several assistance contracts; and the city has funded more than 50 nonprofits with roughly $14 million. He said the city launched non-congregate sheltering (hotel rooms) and placed 72 households into that program to date, and that vacant-unit-turn projects and a large-scale home repair contractor (identified in the presentation as SLS) are due to scale up in coming weeks.

FEMA and state funding: Hill said the city has submitted about $28 million in projects to FEMA for public assistance, with $25 million having gone through FEMA’s audit checks and awaiting final obligation by FEMA leadership in Washington. Hill said the city has so far received $107,000 in reimbursements. City staff and committee members repeatedly warned that federal and state timing and eligibility rules constrain how quickly local funds can be spent and reimbursed.

Remaining GRAMA allocations and near-term requests: Hill said about $5.1 million of the GRAMA pool remained unallocated and described reserves including $650,000 for warming centers and additional utility assistance, $500,000 for a warehouse lease, and roughly $4.0 million left for housing-related winter shelter operations and vacant-unit turns. He said the recovery office will request an additional $2.0 million for non-congregate sheltering on a Jan. 14 special ENA and that DHS plans to request $1.0 million from board bill 93 to expand the $260,000 impacted-tenants pilot (this request was described as planned for a Feb. 11 special ENA).

Contracting status and delivery: Hill and Julian Nicks of the mayor’s office told aldermen that many awarded contracts have started work after ENA approval even when final contract signatures were still routing through city offices. The committee pressed the office on the November–December lapse in contract execution (15 awards in November with one executed; 14 awards in December with none executed at the time shown on the slides). Hill acknowledged the problem and said the office is focused on getting those contracts fully executed and on building operational dashboards and KPIs to report progress.

What residents said: The mayor’s office and recovery staff said they would pause denial letters for rental-assistance applicants while they review cases and are setting up an appeals triage. Nicks committed to publishing KPIs and a public dashboard and reiterated a Jan. 20 community meeting to provide more detailed follow-up.

Next steps: The committee and recovery office scheduled a community meeting on Jan. 20 to present more detailed metrics and intake/process clarifications; the committee also directed staff to report back on contract execution and the status of vacant-unit turns and rental-assistance appeals. The committee adjourned after a late public comment period.

Ending: Recovery office leaders told the committee that the systems needed to scale work are now in place, and they pledged to accelerate visible activity in the next several weeks while continuing to pursue FEMA and state reimbursements.