Andrzejczak ‘Disaster Victims Protection Act’ Clears Assembly

TRENTON — Legislation Assemblyman Bob Andrzejczak sponsored to ensure residents and businesses hit hardest by disaster are priorities for receiving help cleared the Assembly on Thurs.
The “Disaster Victims Protection Act” (A-454) would require the governor to allocate federal and state disaster relief aid to municipalities, including residents and businesses, in proportion to the relative amount of catastrophic physical damage suffered within each affected municipality.
Andrzejczak said such an aid allocation methodology is intended to ensure that residential victims and business owners in the most heavily damaged areas following a disaster are provided assistance before money is spent on other needs. The bill is part of efforts by Assembly Democrats to rebuild New Jersey’s middle-class.
“We still need to address the profound needs of the Delaware Bayshore in Cumberland County, because it has not received the necessary aid due to the unacceptable fact that it was not one of the designated counties,” said Andrzejczak (D-Cape May/Cumberland/Atlantic). “They’ve had to beg and scrap for every bit of help they have received, and that must be fixed. I never again want to see projects receiving disaster aid substantially disproportionate to the amount of damage suffered, particularly when compared to places that suffered more damage.”
Under the bill, whenever the governor is given discretion by the federal government to allocate federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funds through the creation of an action plan or other administrative process – or when the governor has discretion in the allocation of state disaster relief funds – priority consideration in the allocation of funds to and within municipalities shall be given in proportion to the relative amount of physical damaged sustained within each municipality.
The bill was approved 54-19.