By Miguel Rios
On Sept. 18, Pinellas County commissioners passed a $813 million federal grant disaster recovery program, set to launch this October. This followed the five to one vote that approved Horne LLP as the contractor for the Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery program.
Mathew Spoor, assistant county administrator, announced the implementation process during the commissioners’ board meeting on Sept. 18.
“Here we stand roughly one year from Hurricane Helene and Milton, and I’m excited to kick off the next phase, which is implementation of this CDBG grant,” Spoor said. “It’s a cumulation of about ten months worth of work.”
The federal grant program initiative started following the county’s request for funding which led to $813 million coming from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program is to help aspects of disaster recovery such as housing, mitigation, economic recovery and public services through programs of those categories. These programs are called the People First Programs.
In the board meeting, Spoor announced the largest housing programs of the grant, the Homeowner Rehabilitation/Reconstruction program.
“There’s $490 million,” Spoor said. “We’re hoping to help around 1,100 homes and this program is designed to address the most significant and unmet housing needs.”
The county anticipates the Disaster Relief Payments Program under the People First Programs to be the most popular. The program aims to help reimburse around 2,000 residents covering a maximum of $15,000 for about six consecutive months. The payments are to help homeowners with mortgage, rent and utilities if they are facing hardships because of disaster.
The overall contract between Horne LLP and the county was an estimated $565 million. The majority of those funds would go to the people of Pinellas through the various programs.
“So, the total contract is $565 million,” Spoor said. “85% of this total dollar amount are funds that will go directly to applicants or residents of Pinellas County.”
Currently for the program, county officials explained that they will work closely with Ken Burke, the county’s clerk of the circuit court, for financial responsibility across the grant program. During the meeting, Brian Scott expressed great trust in Burke.
“I feel we’ve got a good set of checks and balances in place to make sure the money is going where it needs to go,” Scott said.
Chris Latvala, a commissioner, added that he also has confidence in the financial accountability and oversight that Burke’s office will provide.
“He’s one of the best clerks in the state,” Latvala said.
Spoor said to the board that they have currently, five full-time employees that they have funds for and are in the process of hiring that will also aid in grant management. Other non-full-time positions Spoor explained will be distributed across county departments and services including Burke’s.
“These five individuals, that’s what they will be doing for the next six years or however long it takes,” Spoor said.
Burke’s office, as the clerk was said to provide oversight leading the financial oversight and compliance of the disaster recovery program. Burke said for him and his office, they are focused more on compliance than the amount of the grant itself.
“Doesn’t matter if we have a $100,000 or a $113 million grant, we have to make sure we follow the rules,” Burke said. “Each program within this $813 million has a set of rules and procedures that we’re going to be following but the overall objective here is making sure no one gets paid who shouldn’t get paid.”
Jeanette Staveley, the chief deputy director of finance for Burke’s office, said that two positions were hired when it came to overviewing payments. The clerk’s office of Pinellas also have a website called, Spending in Sunshine. The purpose, Staveley said, is to increase transparency.
“All of the payments that go out related to these funds so, anybody can go to that website and see the reporting related to payments the clerk issues, unless it’s protected information,” Staveley said.
Pinellas residents can also sign up for the recovery programs here. William Seiter, the assistant director of finance of the clerk’s office, is hopeful that the disaster recovery program will go well for Pinellas County.
“In some respect, we’re a little fortunate that this program has been done in Florida so many times,” Seiter said.
