FEMA Flood Mitigation Assistance Grant Program

The FY 2023 Flood Mitigation Assistance grant program cycle is now closed. TWDB anticipates the release of the FY 2024 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to occur in Fall of 2024.

The Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grant program under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), provides federal funding to help states and communities pay for cost effective ways to reduce or eliminate the long-term risk of flood damage to repetitive loss and severe repetitive loss structures that are insured under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The Texas Water Development Board administers the FMA grant program for the State of Texas on behalf of FEMA.

Goals of the FMA program include reducing or eliminating:

• repeated claims under the NFIP, and
• the dependence on taxpayer-funded federal disaster assistance for disaster recovery.

The FMA program is a nationally competitive grant program with an annual application cycle. FEMA will announce the opening of the application cycle with issuance of the "Notice of Funding Opportunity" on grants.gov. Eligible cities, counties, special districts (political subdivisions) will develop an application (referred to as a subapplication) on behalf of citizens (property owners) and submit it to the TWDB through FEMA's FEMA GO grant system. Property owners cannot apply directly to the TWDB or FEMA for an FMA grant. Interested property owners may contact the local floodplain official for their area, or other local officials to find out about their community's interest in applying for an FMA grant.

Information obtained by submitting the required "Request for NFIP Policy Holder PII" form will help you to determine if your project will qualify for FMA funding. Data is usually provided within 15 days. After obtaining your current NFIP data and determining approximately how much of your project's benefitting area includes NFIP-insured properties (and particularly repetitive loss and severe repetitive loss properties), please schedule a meeting with our team to discuss a strategy.

FY2023 Texas FMA Subapplication Guidance

While TWDB encourages all applicants to review the Notice of Funding Opportunity for the FMA Grant Program prior to applying. TWDB would like to provide the following guidance documents and resources for Texas subapplicants. This guidance is specific for the 2023 NOFO and will be updated once the 2024 NOFO is released.

Available Funding for the 2023 NOFO: $800,000,000.00:

• Capability and Capacity Building Activities subtotal: $60,000,000
  • $900,000 per Project Scoping subapplications
  • $100,000 per applicant for flood hazard mitigation planning with maximums of
    • $50,000 for state flood hazard mitigation planning and $25,000 for local flood hazard mitigation planning
  • $300,000 for additional Capability and Capacity Building activities
• Localized Flood Risk Reduction Projects subtotal: $520,000,000
  • $50,000,000 cap per localized flood risk reduction subapplication
• Individual Flood Mitigation Projects subtotal: $220,000,000

Application Type Submission Directions:

• Mitigation Plans must be submitted in a "plan" subapplication type.
• Technical Assistance by States to Communities must be submitted in a "technical assistance" subapplication type.
• Project Scoping must be submitted in a "project scoping" subapplication type.
• Additional Capability and Capacity Building Activities must be submitted in a "project scoping" subapplication type.
• Localized Flood Risk Reduction Project and Individual Flood Mitigation Project must be submitted in a "project" subapplication type.

Subapplication Submission Guidance by Project Type

• Guidance for submitting a Capability and Capacity Building Subapplication
• Guidance for submitting a Flood Risk Reduction Subapplication
• Guidance for submitting a Demolition Project Subapplication
• Guidance for submitting a Elevation Project Subapplication

How to Apply

1. Who is eligible to receive FMA funding?
2. What activities are eligible under the FMA Grant Program?
3. What are the requirements under the FMA Grant Program?
4. What are the cost shares?
5. How does the application and selection process work?
6. How do I get access to FEMA GO?
7. Where can I get more information?
8. Is there FEMA direct technical support?

Resources

Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Assistance

• FEMA's HMA Grants Webpage
• 2023 HMA Guidance
• 2015 HMA Guidance
• 2015 HMA Guidance Addendum
• FY 2023 NOFO Webpage
• FY 2022 NOFO Webpage

General Resources

• Program Eligibility:
  • NFIP community status verification
  • TWDB Repetitive Loss Viewer
• Create a Hazard Mitigation Plan

Contracting and Procurement

• Procurement with FEMA - FEMA Procurement web and resources page
• Informal Methods of Procurement - Provides key information for non-state entities using informal methods of procurement, which are less than $250,000. It also provides a checklist specific to these methods.
• Socioeconomic Contracting - Illustrates guidance for state and non-state entities to follow when taking the six affirmative steps for socioeconomic contracting as detailed at 2 C.F.R. § 200.321.
• Common Mistakes - Introduces the 10 most frequent procurement noncompliance issues as reported by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and lists available resources to help avoid these mistakes.
• HMA Procurement Standards - Procurement standards for non-federal entities that obtain property and services under a HMA Federal award.
• Contracting with FEMA
  • Using Contract Support for the Development of Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) Grant Applications
• Contracting with TWDB
  • FAQ Contract Administration with TWDB
  • TWDB Subcontracting Guidelines

BCA Resources

• TRAINING: Introduction to Benefit-Cost Analysis (E/L0276) - The classroom course materials consist of the student manual, instructor guide and visuals.
• RESOURCES: Download pre-calculated benefits, BCA guidance, ecosystem services and other support documents.
• NEWS AND NOTES - Review BCA-related updates, see the schedule for upcoming releases, and access BCA Toolkit release notes.
• BCA Toolkit Help - Email questions to bchelpline@fema.dhs.gov
• Get Support Performing or Reviewing a BCA - For assistance with performing or reviewing a BCA, or for obtaining answers to eligibility or policy questions, please contact your State Hazard Mitigation Officer.

FMA Resource Library

This resource library contains documents to assist with subapplication submission, grant implementation and grant closeout. It is a culmination of FEMA guidance documents, TWDB guidance documents and examples to better assist Texas communities with the FMA grant process.

FEMA Webinars

FEMA hosts Hazard Mitigation Assistance webinars to bring subject matter experts and partners together to provide technical information, best practices, tools, and resources regarding the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, Flood Mitigation Assistance, and Hazard Mitigation Grant Programs.

• Building a Successful Planning Application: This webinar will answer what makes a good planning application and provide guidance as to where information and resources can be found related to planning grants.
• Building a Successful Flood Risk Reduction Application: This webinar will answer what makes a good flood risk reduction application and use FEMA's example application template to describe the subapplication requirements.
• Building a Successful Acquisition Application: This webinar will answer what makes a good acquisition application and use FEMA's example application template to describe the subapplication requirements.
• Environmental Historic Preservation Review 101: This webinar will provide details on how communities should factor in environmental historic preservation, regulations, executive orders, and laws when planning projects
• FEMA GO Guides - YouTube: This YouTube page is dedicated to assisting applicants and subapplicants with navigating FEMA GO for the FMA or BRIC application cycle.