City officials blast mayor’s tracking of Sandy recovery funds

New state law requires spending to appear on SandyTracker website

From left: Director of OMB Mark Page (Credit: William Alatriste) and Queens homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy (Credit: Shutterstock)
From left: Director of OMB Mark Page (Credit: William Alatriste) and Queens homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy (Credit: Shutterstock)

City Council members recently urged the mayor’s Office of Management and Budget to keep better tabs on funds earmarked for Hurricane Sandy relief.

Members said during a meeting the office hadn’t released all the information on spending on the SandyTracker website as required by a new state law, Crain’s reported.

Although the city has spent more than $2.3 billion on the recovery, the allocation of money to homes and businesses has long been delayed by red tape, despite several new tactics for speeding things up. Officials blamed the holdup of the billions of dollars in aid from the Department of Housing and Urban Development on an approval process slowed by regulatory minutia, according to Crain’s.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is announcing reforms to the bolster the recovery’s Build It Back program on Friday, sources told the news site.

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“We are in conversation with senior staff at HUD and at FEMA about how best to streamline the federal coordination issues,” John Grathwol, deputy director of the OMB, said in the meeting.

De Blasio recently replaced Brad Gair, who resigned as chief of Build It Back amid accusations of fund-mismanagement, with former city official Amy Peterson[Crain’s] Angela Hunt

(Hurricane Sandy damage photo from Shutterstock)