Cooper's Incompetence On Full Display | Eastern NC Now

Press Release:

    Raleigh, NC     Nearly three years have elapsed since Hurricane Matthew struck North Carolina. Matthew dumped more than a foot of rain and killed twenty-one people while forcing thousands to evacuate their homes. Since then, Governor Roy Cooper and his administration have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal CDBG-DR funding. It was reported back in April of 2018 that the Cooper administration had spent ZERO of its $236.5 million grant. Let's check in on Cooper's progress just days after federal Republicans announced a grant of $336.5M for Florence relief. From WBTV:
   

• The Office of Inspector General for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development is conducting a review of North Carolina's agency that distributes federal aid money intended to help rebuild from hurricanes.
• North Carolina has received more than $200 million in federal disaster relief money through a HUD-administered program called Community Development Block Grants-Disaster Recovery. The money is intended to help repair or replace homes damaged by hurricanes in a way that will make them more resilient in future storms.
• ...
• On Monday, a new report from the Program Evaluation Division of the North Carolina General Assembly found the state continued to be slow to distribute the hundreds-of-millions of dollars in federal disaster relief money, even a year after the agency said it was working to change that.
• The new PED report found that the state had spent just one percent, or $3.4 million, of its funds as of December 2018.
• By comparison, the report said, South Carolina, which received CDBG-DR funds at the same time as North Carolina, had spent 22 percent of its block grant money awarded for Hurricane Matthew.
• ...
• On the same day the PED report was released, WBTV confirmed the HUD OIG was in North Carolina to conduct a review of the state's CDBG-DR recovery efforts, which are now managed by the Office of Recovery and Resiliency.
   

    Let's recap:

• May 31, 2017 - Report confirms the Cooper administration had $100M in the bank "sitting unused" for Matthew recovery.
• October 6, 2017 - WRAL report confirms the Cooper administration was "dragging its feet" to get additional CDBG-DR funding.
• April 12, 2018 - WBTV report shows Cooper admin hadn't spent a dime of their $236.5M CDBG-DR grant.
• April 30, 2018 - Eight months after receiving the grant, the first one is awarded.
• May 25, 2018 - Eight of North Carolina's federal representatives write Cooper requesting an explanation. One is not given.
• July 9, 2018 - Cooper admin missed a self-imposed deadline to begin construction for the second time.
• July 30, 2018 - Cooper admin caught re-writing contract bids for Hurricane Matthew relief.
• August 13, 2018 - Cooper snubs legislators to go on a damage control tour that ended poorly, where he refused to meet with residents of affected towns and declined to give a timeline for relief.
• January 1, 2019 - A contract awarded by the Cooper admin is cancelled after it was found to be improperly awarded.
• March 9, 2019 - Report shows that the Cooper admin has spent only $764,229 of the $236.5M CDBG-DR grant.
• May 20, 2019 - Nonpartisan PED report shows Cooper admin has spent ONE PERCENT of the $236.5M grant.

    "Despite more than thirty years in state government, Roy Cooper has shown he is completely incompetent," stated NCGOP spokesman Jeff Hauser. "There are thousands of families that have been left out to dry in eastern North Carolina by the Cooper administration, and he is directly responsible for these delays regarding Hurricane Matthew relief. These families deserve answers from the Governor, not damage control tours for photo ops to address favorability before his re-election campaign."

• Contact: Jeff Hauser
•     jeff.hauser@ncgop.org