Report to the Legislature on the California Energy Commission's Geothermal Development Grant Program for Local Governments

Reducing Local Capacity Bias in Government Grantsmanship

The American Review of Public Administration ◽

10.1177/0275074018814242 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 49 (2) ◽

pp. 174-188 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mary Sprague ◽

Kate F. Wilson ◽

Bruce E. Cain

Keyword(s):

Local Governments ◽

Management Program ◽

Grant Application ◽

Disadvantaged Communities ◽

Grant Programs ◽

Grant Program ◽

Local Capacity ◽

The Impact ◽

Minimal Research ◽

Regional Water

Local governments with more fiscal and administrative resources are at an advantage for obtaining numerous intergovernmental grants. Although many studies have examined the impact of this local capacity bias on grant getting, there has been minimal research on how grant programs could reduce it. We evaluate the effectiveness of two actions that federal and state grant programs have taken to decrease local capacity bias for economically disadvantaged communities, providing matching fund waivers and preferential scoring. By analyzing grant application, evaluation, and award data for California’s Integrated Regional Water Management Program, we find that matching fund waivers were used by many disadvantaged communities in the grant program. However, awarding extra points to projects that would benefit disadvantaged communities appeared to have no impact on funding decisions due to the extra points being small in number and widely distributed. We discuss how the provisions’ design affects their efficacy and how generalizable the findings are to other grant programs. Overall, our study provides support for having grant programs include matching fund waivers and carefully designed scoring preferences to help reduce local capacity bias in grantsmanship.

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Geothermal grant program for local governments: revised grant application manual

10.2172/5456480 ◽

1983 ◽

Author(s):

Keyword(s):

Local Governments ◽

Grant Application ◽

Grant Program

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To Rebuild or Relocate? Long-Term Mobility Decisions of Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) Recipients

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13168754 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (16) ◽

pp. 8754

Author(s):

Kijin Seong ◽

Clare Losey ◽

Shannon Van Zandt

Keyword(s):

Social Vulnerability ◽

Local Governments ◽

Hazard Mitigation ◽

Disaster Assistance ◽

Grant Program ◽

The Social ◽

Federal Assistance ◽

Property Acquisition ◽

Policy Discussion

Limited funds and the demand for disaster assistance call for a broader understanding of how homeowners decide to either rebuild or relocate from their disaster-affected homes. This study examines the long-term mobility decisions of homeowners in Lumberton, North Carolina, USA, who received federal assistance from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) for property acquisition, elevation, or reconstruction following Hurricane Matthew in 2016. The authors situate homeowners’ decisions to rebuild or relocate in the context of property attributes and neighborhood characteristics. Logit and probit regressions reveal that homeowners with lower-value properties are less likely to relocate, and those subjected to higher flood and inundation risks are more likely to relocate. Additionally, homeowners in neighborhoods of higher social vulnerability—those with a higher proportion of minorities and mortgaged properties—are more likely to rebuild their disaster-affected homes. The authors discuss homeowners’ mobility decisions in the context of the social vulnerability of neighborhoods. Our results contribute to an ongoing policy discussion that seeks to articulate the housing and neighborhood attributes that affect the long-term mobility decisions of recipients of HMGP assistance. The authors suggest that local governments prioritize the mitigation of properties of homeowners of higher physical and social vulnerability to reduce socioeconomic disparities in hazard mitigation and build equitable community resilience.

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