JEFFERSON CITY – Gov. Jay Nixon today signed House Bill 16, the disaster recovery supplemental budget bill for Fiscal Year 2015. The bill provides additional appropriation authority to the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) to reimburse local communities through federal funds for local recovery and hazard mitigation projects. Since exhausting the current appropriation amount in January, SEMA has already received requests for reimbursement for over 200 projects totaling $36.5 million.

“From the new high school in Joplin to repairing roads and bridges damaged by floods in Phelps and Pulaski counties, these federal disaster funds are urgently needed to reimburse local communities across the state,” saidGov. Nixon. “I’m pleased that the General Assembly has answered my call to get these federal funds out to the communities that need them and look forward to working with legislators to ensure local communities are promptly and appropriately reimbursed in the future.”

The bill also includes $8.5 million so that SEMA and other state agencies have sufficient funding to respond to emergencies and disasters that may arise before the end of the fiscal year and to reimburse local entities for the state share of recovery costs. The additional appropriation authority is necessary due to costs incurred by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Missouri National Guard in responding to emergencies.

The bill will allow reimbursement for projects including safe rooms, road and bridge repair, debris removal, and construction of critical infrastructure like schools and hospitals. A full list of these recovery and rebuilding projects is available here.

Federal funding for these projects had been delayed because beginning in Fiscal Year 2014, the General Assembly removed the “estimated” designation from disaster appropriations, which effectively capped the amount of federal disaster funds available to reimburse local communities for recovery projects.