Citizen Portal
Sign In

County near FEMA obligations: staff says about $5.2 million expected; mitigation plan amended to access state funds

Mills County Commissioners Court · January 13, 2026

Loading...

AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Mills County staff reported they have advanced to FEMA phase 5 (obligation) and expect roughly $5.2 million in obligated funds; commissioners also approved an amendment to the county mitigation plan to add sites and pursue additional state mitigation funding estimated around $3 million.

County emergency-management staff told commissioners that the county’s FEMA projects have moved into the obligation phase and that federal and state approvals are the remaining administrative steps before funds are distributed to the county treasury.

"We are in phase 5," David Shaw said, explaining that phase covers obligation of funds and that the county’s submitted projects have been accepted and are awaiting final state-level signatures. Shaw told commissioners the worksheet of obligated projects translates to "a little over $5,200,000" available to complete projects once the state processes the obligations.

Shaw also described an amendment to the county’s Hazard Mitigation Plan to add identified project sites and update the engineering cost estimate (the mitigation amendment was presented with a cost update around $3,000,000). He said the amendment allows the county to pursue state '404 mitigation' funding in addition to FEMA Public Assistance. Commissioners voted to amend the mitigation plan and to authorize the judge to submit documents to the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

Shaw recommended that precinct commissioners track allocated base materials closely (if a project is assigned material and does not use it, that material should remain on a precinct yard to avoid losing reimbursable assets). He also said the state homeland-security director reviews projects in a seven-day rotation, meaning obligations may be finalized within days.

Next steps: staff will distribute finalized binders showing scope and cost for each precinct-level project and proceed with procurement and stockpiling logistics as funds are obligated.