Bill > S2893

Introduced Session

Under this bill, the Governor would allocate federal and State disaster relief aid to municipalities, including residents and businesses therein, in proportion to the relative amount of catastrophic physical damage suffered within each affected municipality. This aid allocation methodology is intended to ensure that residential victims and business owners in the most heavily damaged areas following a disaster are provided assistance prior to the expenditure of aid monies for other economic development and redevelopment projects. In response to the unprecedented damage to this State caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, New Jersey received billions of federal dollars from Congress in the form of Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funds to support the State's rebuilding and reconstruction efforts. With approval from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Governor allocated millions of dollars to housing development projects within the nine most-impacted counties, as designated by HUD, which include Atlantic, Bergen, Cape May, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, and Union counties. Some municipalities within these designated counties were completely devastated, while other municipalities within these counties suffered far less, if any, major damage. Some of the least-damaged municipalities, however, received disproportionately greater CGBG-DR funding from the State for development projects, leaving some of the residents and businesses in more damaged municipalities at a fiscal disadvantage for reconstruction. This bill is intended to ensure that residents and businesses most impacted by a disaster will receive a level of disaster relief aid commensurate with the amount of damage sustained within the municipality. Fundamental principles of fairness and equity require that the residents and businesses in those municipalities that are the hardest hit and suffer the most physical damage from a natural or other disaster should receive the most relief.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Linda Greenstein (D)*, 

Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee (on 03/04/2024)

Official Document