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Creates a new category called "excess funds for management costs" and lets the President make unused grant management dollars available to grantees or subgrantees that received certain FEMA disaster or emergency grants. Those excess funds can be used for building preparedness, recovery, or mitigation capacity and for certain disaster-related management costs, and they remain available for five years. Requires a Comptroller General report within 180 days on actual management-cost practices and data for major disasters over the prior five years, and specifies that no new appropriations are authorized to implement these changes. The rule applies to declarations and grants made and funded on or after enactment.
The bill lets state and local grantees keep and repurpose unspent FEMA management funds to strengthen preparedness and gives Congress more oversight, but it risks reducing or delaying immediate recovery aid for disaster survivors and does not provide new funding.
State and local governments (and eligible nonprofits) can repurpose unspent FEMA management funds for disaster preparedness and mitigation projects and keep those funds available for up to five years, enabling better planning and increased readiness for future emergencies.
A GAO reporting requirement increases congressional oversight and transparency over FEMA management-cost set-asides, which can improve accountability for how jurisdictions use those funds.
Low-income people and disaster-affected communities could receive less immediate recovery and direct-response assistance if grantees divert management funds to preparedness rather than frontline recovery work.
Because the bill does not authorize new appropriations, implementation depends on existing funding levels, so some states or localities may not gain additional resources despite the new allowable uses.
Allowing grantees multi-year flexibility risks funds being used for lower-priority administrative activities rather than urgent frontline recovery, which could delay aid to affected communities.
Introduced February 27, 2025 by Margaret Wood Hassan · Last progress February 27, 2025