Concluding Thoughts

While this is an academic exercise to better understand and peak behind the curtains of how governments handle disaster recovery initiatives, our prior analysis lends to both new methodologies and key insights. Some of the new aspects of this research included analyzing funding out inside the territory (by island), mapping out USVI’s CDBG-DR program, and a comparison of previously published recovery and resiliency plans from various stakeholders. From this analysis, we have identified four takeaways and two recommendations.

There are many stakeholders in this process, and the process itself is often-top down.

Cataloging all of the funding sources and their requirements is quite a feat for any government agency, especially one lacking capacity. The siloed nature of each program, whether FEMA Public Assistance or HUD CDBG, exacerbates this issue. Further, scaling down to track individual projects is quite complicated and many of the sources for data tracking are inconsistent with one another.

There are implications of “recovery” vs. “resilience.”

In this research, it has become clear from accounts by government officials and private contractors that many of the recovery funds, particularly FEMA funds, are earmarked for restoration to prior conditions. In this sense, the idea of “recovery” to only prior conditions is retrospective and leaves little room for new ideas or innovations for what resilience could or should look like. Due to the requirement to restore, there is little potential to take advantage of advances in building or construction techniques, move built assets to safer locations, or enhance built assets if they needed to provide new services. The idea of repair is a major shortcoming of these programs and severely hinders the ability to be future-oriented and resilience promoting.

There is a need for capacity for meaningful action.

This research comes two years after the RAND report, which highlighted many of the challenges facing the USVI’s ability or inability to utilize allocated resources.

In this context, USVI is struggling with capacity from two angles: the first of which is a lack of locals to make up an efficient workforce, which is outlined in the existing conditions portion of this book and the second is broader political power, which is outlined in finding 3. Both types of capacity are required to make headway with recovery and resiliency efforts. Without this capacity (and even with time horizon extensions for funding programs), many of the funds will not be completely used—leaving money on the table and needs unmet.

There are increasing opportunities for community influence.

Through this analysis, it has been clear that in the right setting, community engagement on the island produces great plans. St. Croix has a history of doing this well and this analysis and the below recommendations encourages to keep operating with this framework. This takeaway is inspired by the Hurricane Recovery and Resilience Task Force created after the 2017 hurricanes and the St. Croix Community Recovery Plan discussed in Finding 3.

Recommendations

These four takeaways inform the two recommendations to be proposed.

1 2

Create of a citizen’s budgetary oversight committee.

This action requires little overhead, with precedents noted above. The benefits of a citizen’s budgetary oversight committee will be plentiful: it will be an initiative to get the community involved, create meaningful engagement and allow locals to share their experiences on where money should go, and manifest as an act of transparency that will actively engage residents into the community-wide recovery process.

Strengthen ODR’s data releases.

Only established in 2019, ODR has been a tremendous step forward in progress for utilization of the funds. For both an internal and external use, ODR regularly updates funding tracking statistics. This analysis has identified a few ways to make ODR’s data releases more efficacious, which include:

1. Mapping funding by island to promote island-wide equity.

2. Mapping Capital Improvements Planning projects with overlays of flood, hazard, and sea level rise zones.

3. Releasing more detailed information on where funding is going, i.e. which specific projects and contracts of work signed, breaking down how much money is used for overhead.

4. Creating a repository of all past Executive Dashboard findings.

1. “United States Virgin Islands Recovery Plan: State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds 2022 Report.” Government of the United States Virgin Islands, 2022. https://home.treasury.gov/ system/files/136/VirginIslands_2022RecoveryPlan_SLT-6922.pdf.

2. Culbertson, Shelly, Blas Nunez-Neto, Joie Acosta, Cynthia Cook, Andrew Lauland, Kristin Leuschner, Shanthi Nataraj, et al. Recovery in the U.S. Virgin Islands: Progress, Challenges, and Options for the Future. RAND Corporation, 2020. https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA282-1.

3. “All Funds Executive Dashboard, Oct. 31, 2022.” USVI Office of Diaster Recovery, October 2022. https://www.usviodr.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ODR-Executive-Dashboard_ October-2022.pdf.

4. “USVI Monitoring of 2017 CDBG DR.” US HUD, Office of the Inspector General, 2022. https://www.hudoig.gov/library/ongoing-work/usvi-monitoring-2017-cdbg-dr.

5. We particularly want to thank Kirsten McGregor of Sagax Associates for sharing her extensive knowledge and experience with the federal recovery funding system with us. Her expertise was as a critical point of guidance for this project.

6. “St. Croix Community Recovery Plan,” 2018. https://www.usviodr.com/wp-content/ uploads/2019/07/STX_Community_Plan_Final_3_12s.pdf.

7. Culbertson, Shelly, Blas Nunez-Neto, Joie Acosta, Cynthia Cook, Andrew Lauland, Kristin Leuschner, Shanthi Nataraj, et al. Recovery in the U.S. Virgin Islands: Progress, Challenges, and Options for the Future. RAND Corporation, 2020. https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA282-1.

8. All Funds Executive Dashboard, Oct. 31, 2022.” USVI Office of Diaster Recovery, October 2022. https://www.usviodr.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ODR-Executive-Dashboard_ October-2022.pdf.

9. “U.S. Virgin Islands.” USA Spending, 2022. https://www.usaspending.gov/state/us-virginislands/latest.

10. All Funds Executive Dashboard, Oct. 31, 2022.” USVI Office of Diaster Recovery, October 2022. https://www.usviodr.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ODR-Executive-Dashboard_ October-2022.pdf.

11. “United States Virgin Islands Recovery Plan: State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds 2022 Report.” Government of the United States Virgin Islands, 2022. https://home.treasury.gov/ system/files/136/VirginIslands_2022RecoveryPlan_SLT-6922.pdf.

12. “St. Croix Community Recovery Plan,” 2018. https://www.usviodr.com/wp-content/ uploads/2019/07/STX_Community_Plan_Final_3_12s.pdf.

13. USVI Housing Finance Authority. USVI Housing Finance Authority CBDG-DR Action 3 Presentation, 2022.

14. Government of the US Virgin Islands. “Hurricane Recovery and Resiliency Task Force Emphasizes Growth, Opportunity through Collaboration,” n.d. https://www.vi.gov/ hurricane-recovery-and-resiliency-task-force-emphasizes-growth-opportunity-throughcollaboration/.

15. All Funds Executive Dashboard, Oct. 31, 2022.” USVI Office of Diaster Recovery, October 2022. https://www.usviodr.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ODR-Executive-Dashboard_ October-2022.pdf.