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Good afternoon all, and welcome, everyone, to the Flood Mitigation Funding and Resources webinar.

Thank you for joining us today.

My name is Lee Huntoon and I'm the outreach specialist lead for the water supply and infrastructure division.

For today's webinar we will be presenting an overview of the flood infrastructure fund intended use plan and a walk through of the FIF abridged application led by Tom Entsminger, the manager for programs EWSI.

Hi, Tom.

Hello.

And we will also give you an introduction to the Flood Information Clearinghouse webpage lead by Kathleen Ligon, who is the special assistant to the executive administer.

Hi, Kathleen.

Hi, everyone.

So, we know everyone is working with potentially temperamental internet service.

So, if you experience any technical issues, please know this webinar is being recorded and will be made available on our website for viewing as soon as possible.

We will send out an e-mail when it's available, just so you know.

Tom will be starting his presentation momentarily, but first, let's go over some housekeeping.

The webinar is scheduled to last up to 1 and 1/2 hours, and our plan today is to have Tom and Kathleen give their presentations and then we will try to answer some questions submitted from you all by -- during the webinar.

If at all possible, please send those questions to fif@twdb.texas.gov.

We will also take questions submitted through the webinar software.

We will try to answer all questions that are submitted, but if we're unable to answer them today, staff will follow up by e-mail as soon as possible.

And please know this webinar is also for us, too, as an agency and that we do not have all of the answers because we do not have all of the questions.

So, your e-mail with questions are very welcomes and will help us evaluate and develop the program further.

As a side note, we hosted this same webinar last week, and this webinar will be covering the same topics we discussed if you're tuning in again.

We also have on-demand presentations available for viewing now.

The way you go to it is go to the flood tab on our webpage, and if you scroll down we have the click to the on-demand presentations.

And right now, we have the flood infrastructure fund intended use plan, which is the presentation you're about to see.

And the abridged application and a couple of others will be posted pretty soon.

We also have PDFs for this -- for the flood intended use presentation attached right now to this webinar for handouts for your use.

Again, please remember to submit your questions to fif@twdb.texas.gov, and I'll turn it over to Tom.

All right, well, thank you, Lee.

And hello again to everyone.

Once again, my name is Tom.

I manage the program administration team at the Water Development Board.

And it's my pleasure to do this presentation for you today.

As Lee mentioned, there is a recorded version of this presentation on our website.

So, don't feel like you need to struggle to take notes or anything like that, you can always just go click and listen to it on-demand.

I'm going to do a walk-through of the flood infrastructure fund IUP, and then I'm going to do a much briefer walk-through of the flood infrastructure fund abridged application.

And as a little bonus, that's going to include a walk-through of how we recommend getting the census data that you're going to use to answer some of the questions on the abridged application, including a short little trip over to the census website.

So, stayed for that.

So, the intended use plan, of course, for those of you who don't already know about it, is going to be where the details exist for a lot of the funding cycle information you're going to be looking for, particularly if you're an applicant or if you're working with applicants.

And if you are trying to familiarize yourself with the program and you have not looked at the flood IUP yet, it's kind of crucial that you do so because it will help you sort of frame your questions and probably help to answer a lot of your preliminary ones.

And so, the URL that you see on the screen here on the right-hand side is going to be where you find that document.

I'm going to be just tracking pretty closely with the sections of the IUP as we go through this presentation.

So, obviously, we're here talking about this new program at the Water Development Board that was developed pursuant to SB7 and Proposition 8.

And the IUP, the idea here is that it contains the details that aren't specified in the rule or in the statute.

And so, it's something that has the additional flexibility that allows it to be updated each funding cycle, and it will develop along with the maturity of the program over time.

And so, things like prioritization criteria or the eligibility for a certain type of grant might be something that needs adjustment as the program matures.

And so, this is the document where we're able to do that.

And so, there are two, in my opinion, two major things that are communicated in the IUP.

That is, the four categories of eligible activities and the two-stage application process and the way that kind of works.

If there's any one thing that I hope is clarified for you in this presentation, if the information is new for you, I hope that it will be the four categories of eligible projects, because that's what so much else kind of hinges on.

So, the funding cycle, I mentioned it's a two-stage process.

The first is the abridged application.

The abridged application provides what we need in order to prioritize proposed projects, and at the same time that we're doing that, we're trying to see what the eligible loading grant for each project is so that we can invite the projects that are within the available capacity for the funding cycle to submit full applications.

So, the full application is something that's invitation only in this program, and it's totally different than the abridged application.

The abridged is much shorter and it gives us the information, like I said, to prioritize the projects, to understand what the strain is on the program capacity, but the full application is what we're actually using to do technical review of the project that you're proposing and to actually consider underwriting a financial assistance for the project.

And so, based on that full application, staff will develop a board recommendation that the board will consider in a meeting and they'll, you know, hopefully, that will result in a financial assistance commitment for the project.

So, eligible applicants for this program.

If you are familiar with our existing programs, if you've gone through them before, or if you're a consultant that's used to advising people on our programs, the thing to note here's is it's not a perfect one-to-one match with our other existing programs, the water and wastewater and things like that.

It's very similar, but it's not a perfect match.

So, you should check if you're working with a district or something like that, that isn't an absolute clear slam dunk.

And so, cities and counties are going to be eligible, as well as any district created under Article III, Section 52 or Article XVI, Section 59 of the State Constitution.

And I know I haven't introduced the project categories yet, so I don't want to confuse you with them, but note here that the majority of the categories are in that first batch.

They all share that same eligibility when it comes to the applicants.

Category one is an oddball.

It's the flood protection planning projects, and it's going to be the same as the above plus any other political subdivision of the state, any interstate compact commission to which the state is a party, and any nonprofit water supply corporation created and operating under Chapter 67.

If you're curious about why that's different, it's because we already had a program that did flood protection planning, and there was a bank account and some rule language and all this other stuff already set up in existence for it.

And we kind of determined that, as we get category one proposals, the funds to fund those projects are going to be transferred over into the existing account, which makes it subject to the existing rules.

And so, there will be a couple of places where category one is different, and that, in most cases, is going to be the reason why.

Eligible projects is a very, very wide net that we're casting here.

I'm not a fan of very wordy slides, but the rule language is really the best way to show you just how broad we're being here.

We are basically trying to fund flood projects, right? That's what this is overall.

And a flood project is a drainage flood mitigation or flood control project, including planning and design activities, work to obtain regulatory approval, construction of structural flood mitigation and drainage projects, including those that use nature-based features, construction and implementation of nonstructural projects, nonstructural or natural flood control strategies, and a federally authorized project to deepen a ship channel affected by a flooding event.

That was one thing that was specified specifically in the -- in the legislation.

So, we've defined drainage, flood mitigation and flood control, and again, there's very broad language here.

You can see under drainage we say includes but is not limited to, under flood control, structural mitigation or anything that retains, diverts, redirects, impedes, or otherwise modifies the flow of water.

So, what we're basically doing here is laying the groundwork and, you know, couching this program in terms of flood, but we're not trying to be so specific about what you can do with it.

Basically, if you can -- if you can use the word flood in relation to your project, it's probably worth pitching to us.

It sounds like it would probably be an eligible project under this program.

There is a list in the flood IUP, and I hesitate to direct you to it, because I think a lot of people when they see a list they feel like they're discouraged from applying for the things that aren't specifically mentioned on that list.

But, you know, again, we can't emphasize enough it's just a partial kind of thing.

But if you want to see a list that'll help kind of get you in the right mindset, you can check page three of the IUP.

So, the next session is minimum standards.

And this is a set of eligibility criteria that apply across the board regardless of the type of activity that you're pursuing.

And so, for example, the first one is the benefit cost ratio per construction-oriented proposals.

And so, that's all your structural flood improvements, your elevations.

For the purpose of this program, buyouts are considered a construction proposal.

So, for the abridged application, we're actually asking for that benefit cost ratio itself, description of the methodology used, we're providing a flood IUP, links to the FEMA and Corps of Engineers' methodologies but, you know, you can propose or use something else.

We're looking for a list of the key assumptions or parameters that were used.

And we might ask you to actually show your work and provide that BCR calculation.

So, what if it is not a construction-oriented proposal? Well, for a number of other different types of projects, we're not necessarily asking for benefit cost ratios, but we're asking for information that's sort of in that same spirit.

So, for flood early warning systems, low-water crossings, and in other kinds of projects we'll be asking for similar information to [inaudible] the cost ratio.

However, if what you're proposing is just a study, the kind of thing that you're going to get out there and figure out what your potential feasible alternatives are, and you're not necessarily proposing a project yet, that's not going to be subject to the BCR requirement.

So, the studies that identify flood risk or flood modeling and inundation mapping, the preparation of flood response plans is another thing that's not -- that this requirement does not apply to.

So, again, for the studies, no BCR requirement.

For pretty much everything else, there's either a BCR or something in the -- in the spirit of the BCR.

There's also a memorandum of understanding required for flood control projects.

If the benefiting watershed is going to fall partly outside the applicant's jurisdiction and into the jurisdiction of any other eligible political subdivision.

So, if that is the case, then any of those applicable eligible political subdivisions need to be a party with the applicant to an MOU regarding the management of the watershed.

And so, let's say the watershed for the project is enormous and there are like six different eligible political subdivisions whose jurisdictions it falls onto, that doesn't have to be six individual MOUs.

It can be one single one or, if the scheduling works easier, to do the six separately.

You can do that however you want, but as long as all those applicable political subdivisions have MOUs in place.

The timing of this is important.

This was a big question initially.

The abridged application is not the point at which we're requesting the actual executed MOU.

If the abridged app actually is an attachment to the document, we provide a template MOU that you're welcome to use.

We ask for an indication of who those political subdivisions are and we ask you to certify that they are aware of the project, but the actual executed signed MOU is not due [inaudible] full application.

Similar sort of in spirit to the MOU, we require an affidavit with the full application where you have to basically attest to two different things.

First, that the applicant has acted cooperatively with other political subdivisions in the project area to address flood control needs, and that anybody who's substantially affected by the projects has had an opportunity to participate in the development process.

And again, that's with the full application, just like that MOU.

We also prohibit redundant funding, which in this context means that we're not wanting to pay for things that have already been paid for with another source.

For an example, I'm going to kind of slip back into my water supply world, that if somebody is installing a pipeline and they have applied for funding from another source for the stretch of pipeline from point A to point B, we don't want to come in and pay for point A to point B, we want to pay for B to C or some other portion of the project.

And so, it's perfectly fine to involve multiple funding sources in your projects.

They can be a mixture of federal and state and local and all that kind of thing, but the budgets are going to need to be specific and detailed about who's paying for what.

And I don't think that we're going to be the only ones with that kind of requirement.

Another minimum standard is that the project area needs to be served by ordinances or orders at least equivalent to national flood insurance program minimum standards.

And so, of course, this wouldn't apply if the project that's being proposed is for the purpose of fulfilling the requirements that would help the applicant participate in the NFIP.

The development of the project must have been done using the most -- the best and most recent available data.

And I know that the word best is kind of subjective.

Just know that there are subject matter experts who will see the abridged application and you don't want to be basing your flood risk on things like, you know, water colors from the 19th century or something like that if there's more recent or better data available to you.

There are a couple of minimum standards that only apply to those proposing construction projects.

The first is that they've planned for operations and maintenance costs associated with any facilities that they're proposing, and that's important because those costs are not eligible under this program and they're not eligible under most public funding programs.

They also have to certify that they've considered possible flood water capture techniques associated with the project for water supply purposes.

So, you know, back when we were in severe drought and, you know, people would talk about, well, why didn't we capture water from the last time we had a flood and we'd hunky-dory right now, that's kind of what we're talking about here.

It would be great if we could have that as a -- as a bonus attached to a project, and we're asking that anyone who's proposing construction just at least look at the opportunities and try to find them.

So, that's it for the minimum standards.

The next section in IUP, and I think I'm actually going in order with the IUP sections here if you're reading along at home, is the project categories.

And as I mentioned before, in my opinion, this is kind of the most important [inaudible] this portion of the presentation because this is where you'll kind of begin to understand what you're looking for in the program, I think.

So, there are four categories.

And what falls into each category, what each category delineates, is the type of project that can be funded in that category and the type of financing that's attached to it, or that's available in conjunction with it.

So, for any of the four categories that we see on the screen right now, we have 0% interest rate loans.

So, you can say I would like to propose something under category one, for example, and I would like a 0% interest rate loan.

Or, as I'm going to show you here on these other screens, you can provide additional information and have the project considered for a certain percentage of grant availability.

And so, that's what we're going to walk through next.

So, category one, I mentioned it earlier, this is that one that we had the existing program and now it's kind of been glommed into the flight infrastructure fund, but we're still going to use that existing account to deliver the funds to the communities.

So, eligible projects under this category are going to be serving a geographic unit of HUC-10 or larger.

And so, this is a -- as you're going to see on the next screen, this is a very popular category.

And it's the one we get asked about the most.

And the question is, invariably, is X, Y, Z communities, you know, drainage study or such and such kind of study, going to work for this category? So, let's look at that first bullet point, HUC-10 or larger is actually a pretty big area.

And so, what we're implying here, what we're actually saying is that the ones that are going to get this -- the financing under category one are probably going to be your bigger, more collaborative projects where more people are around the table working together.

And that's just a priority that the board kind of expressed as we were putting these categories together, and you'll see that in the financing that's available on the next slide.

So, not only are we looking for something that's big enough to be [inaudible] or studying HUC-10 geography or larger, but it needs to fit the definition of flood control planning that appears in Texas Water Code Section 15.405.

And so, I've copied and pasted that here for you.

The planning for flood protection, preparing applications for regulatory approvals, activities associated with administrative or legal proceedings by regulatory agencies, and preparing engineering plans and specifications for -- to provide structural or nonstructural flooding flood mitigation and drainage.

What we're specifically not looking for in this category, and we specify it because it's been asked so much, is flood insurance rate maps.

That's not what this category is for.

Again, it's for collaborative planning efforts that look at large-scale watersheds, HUC-10 or larger.

And I mentioned it was a really popular category, and this kind of tells the story.

If the study areas, AMHI, or annual median household income, is less than or equal to 50% of the statewide AMHI, and has been the subject of flood-related disaster declaration in the past five years, it's eligible to receive a 100% grant.

So, what if it doesn't meet both of those parameters? Well, there are further grant availabilities based purely on the AMHI without consideration of that flood disaster declaration.

So, if it's less than or equal to 75% of the statewide AMHI, that's 90% grant.

And at the other end of that scale, if it's over 125% of the statewide AMHI, it's still eligible for 50% grant.

So, that was category one.

Category two is planning, acquisition, design, and construction or rehabilitation.

And these project-based terms are ones that we use in our other programs.

I guess they're probably used elsewhere in the industry, but they are pretty clearly delineated phases in our -- in our other programs, and we've kind of adopted them here.

And planning is referring to those preliminary studies and feasibility assessments.

If you are planning to do some planning, and it does not fall under category one, that does not mean it's not eligible for the flood infrastructure fund.

It just means that it's planning under category two.

Acquisition.

I know that in the flood world that has another meaning.

It means, you know, your buyouts [inaudible] repetitive loss stuff, in this case we're talking about the actual land purchase, or easements that are required to install facilities or to perform a project.

Design.

You know, again, to slip into examples from the water supply world, but this is the point where you would have plans and specs that are permittable by the TCEQ and which will allow us to provide construction funding.

So, design is when you have things fully scoped out, fully developed and ready for that permitting or construction.

And then construction itself is kind of self-explanatory.

But for this program we're going to include things like implementation of nonstructural projects or rehabilitation or buyouts.

Construction here is going to end up being your catchall, anything that attempts -- under any of the other categories and didn't fit them that is still eligible for the program is probably going to be construction under category two.

The loan and grant work out a little bit differently in this category than it did in the previous one.

Loan interest rate, as I mentioned, is 0%.

So, anything that's not covered by the grant, it can be covered by the -- by the 0% interest rate loan.

In that previous category, category one, you'll notice that the grant percentages came with associated local shares.

That's not the case in any of these other categories.

In these other categories, the 0% interest rate loan is covering for anything that the grant doesn't cover for.

And the way it works is you sort of have these boxes, these thematic boxes of different opportunities for grant percentage.

And you check off the ones that apply to you or to your project, and you just basically tick the sum and that's your grant percentage for the project.

So, for example, if the project is entirely outside of a metropolitan statistical area, 10%.

If the AMHI is below a certain point, there's grant associated with that, up to 40%.

If the unemployment rate is greater than the state average, there's a calculation to determine some additional grant.

Likewise, if the population has declined over the past five years.

Rural applicants or projects qualify for 5% grant.

I'm going to define what that means a little bit later on, but just make a note here that that's 5% for rural.

And if any of those previous boxes have been checked, plus at least 80% of the total costs are green or nature based, then that's an additional 5%.

So, as you can see, these add up -- these can, depending on the project, get pretty high pretty quickly in terms of the available grant percentage.

The other categories after this are going to look somewhat like this with a couple of exceptions.

Category three is going to be your federal award matching funds.

And so, we were thinking about, you know, every time FEMA funding comes in after an event there is grant funding available, but there's invariably some percentage of local match required, and some communities have some trouble coming up with that local match.

And so, that's what this category is intended to provide.

Again, 0% interest rate loan to cover anything that the grant doesn't cover.

And you'll note here that this box is the same as it was in the previous category, except we've added a 90% cap.

And so, that's one way in which this category is distinct from the previous one.

Otherwise, these categories are exactly the same.

The percentages here under AMHI have jumped up.

Each of those four levels is 30% higher than it was on the previous category.

Otherwise, they're the same.

So, this is category three and it looks just like category two except for the 90% cap, and those more generous percentages under the AMHI box.

Category four is measures immediately effective in protecting life and property.

And this is -- this might always be a challenging one to explain to people.

It's a category for projects that -- I mean, maybe they could fit under one of the other categories, but they're highlighted for category four because they're quickly implementable, they have immediate effectiveness.

And you know, let's say we fund a dozen really wonderful projects that are major infrastructure or major studies that take years to implement and we have a storm eight months.

The hit that we might take in public perception after investing all that money and then not being protected from the immediate storm wouldn't be that great, you know? So, we thought it would be nice to call out and to incentivize projects that are more immediately effective and maybe help build local supporting communities for those bigger projects down the road.

We're hoping to get a mix of proposals from all four of the different categories.

And, you know, it would be kind of nice to see in any given funding cycle some big, long-term investments, and then some things that are, you know, by next summer they're already saving lives potentially.

So, that's what we're thinking of with category four.

And we don't have a finite or a defined list of examples, but a few that we -- that we know for sure would go in this category are things like warning systems, crossing barriers, public education and outreach programs, reverse 911 systems, and dam emergency action plans.

On the abridged application you can click a box that tells us what category you think your project is in, and by all means, propose category four if you think it falls under here.

The financing is going to look just like that previous category.

There's the 0% interest rate loans and we've kept that 90% cap, as well as those more generous percentages under AMHI.

So, this is actually exactly the same as category three, which was different from category two in those couple of ways, the cap and the AMHI percentages.

Now, the next section of the IUP is going to be prioritization.

And these are the actual factors that we'll be applying to your proposals to determine the ranking.

So, right off the top, the board has expressed an overarching preference for -- or, a -- or, a desire to incentivize certain types of projects.

And so, projects in those categories, category one and category four, are going to get points right off the top.

And so, that's what our first two criteria are.

For category one, you get a little bit extra in terms of the points if the AMHI is below a certain level.

Next is rural applicants, and I -- remember, I had you make a mental note previously, because they got that 5% grant in categories two, three, and four.

And the standards for rural eligibility here are that all entities in the project area are outside MSAs and have populations less than 10,000.

Or, the applicant is a district or municipality with a service area of 10,000 or less.

Or, the applicant is a county in which no urban area exceeds 50,000 in population.

So, if they satisfy any of those -- any of the three 12 points here, 5% grant, in categories two through four anyway.

Next up is some points for emergency need, and that could be based on a recent failure or imminent failure of flood infrastructure, or it could be for a recent flood related disaster declaration that would be significantly mitigated by the proposed project.

And when we say failure here, what we're talking about is the inability to perform as designed.

Distributed benefits is basically just a fancy term for regionalization.

You would click yes at this point on the abridged application if the project is expected to directly benefit or include the active participation of political subdivisions other than the applicant.

Timely completion is a scoring factor.

And so, 10 points will go to projects that are anticipated to finish within 18 months and five points for those anticipated to finish within 36 months.

There are a couple for construction projects only.

The first is one for if the project is going to result in the water supply benefit.

So, we asked you, as a minimum standard, that you considerate it if you're proposing a water -- a construction project rather.

If you're actually able to achieve it and you get that unicorn project submitted, that's 10 points in scoring.

Another one just for construction projects, and this is another thing that's kind of a challenge to explain, is a factor that compares projects that are flood control projects that are having impacts on the flood risk in the project area.

And so, we ask for is, the number of fac -- or, the number of structures anticipated to no longer be located in floodplains as a result of the proposed project.

And the idea here is not that structures are being torn down or moved or anything like that, we're talking about projects having an impact on the shape and the geography of flood risk in the benefiting area, and we want to know how many structures are benefiting from that shape change from that impact on flood risk in the area.

And so, Basically, anybody who's proposing a construction project with that kind of benefit would give us a number, and the numbers are compared against one another.

So, if you're in the top 25% compared to the other applicable projects, that's 12 points.

And the other end of the scale is the bottom 25% of projects would be eligible to receive three points.

So, those last two were just for construction projects.

And so, we're going to balance things out, planning, acquisition, and or design requests that don't include any construction, they get 12 points.

If non-structural flood mitigation represents at least 20% of the total project cost, that's five points.

And then for the tiebreaker we use what's called the social vulnerability index, or SVI, which is a metric that was developed by the Centers for Disease Control, and its meant to identify areas that need some extra consideration or support when it comes to planning for or mitigating against or responding to a disaster.

And it's pretty handy because it comes up with a decimal value.

So, it's great for tiebreaker purposes.

But we have a URL to an interactive SVI map in the flood IUP.

And so, you can kind of zoom in, and depending on your zoom level, you can get the information at the census tract or the county.

And so, that's what we ask for for the tiebreaker.

So, the steps following prioritization are basically to get the results to the board and to the public and then to send invitations to those entities whose projects range within the available funding capacity for the funding cycle.

The difference between the abridged application and that full application that you're invited to submit is pretty substantial.

The abridged application is a rather short document.

It's just, you know, we're doing the prioritization, we're making sure the [audio skip] is eligible, we're making sure we understand what category it falls into and; therefore, you know, the loan and grant opportunities.

The full application is, you know, we've got lawyers and engineers and financial specialists and natural resources specialists who are all going to review it and make underwriting determinations and recommendations to our board.

And so, it's a completely kind of different document.

So, as you'll hear from Kathleen a little bit later, we are coordinating with other agencies on our flood funding initiatives, or our disaster funding initiatives.

And we have some additional questions on the abridged application that we're actually going to use to determine the project's eligibility for these other agency's programs, and where appropriate, we'll help make referrals to make sure that you get the best financing for your project, or the most appropriate financing.

I think Lee already mentioned this, but we're using the central mailbox, fif@twdb.texas.gov.

This is where you'll be submitting the abridged apps, but you're also welcome to submit any questions also.

And, you know, just because it's handy because it's all the same people who would need to consider your question anyway, are going to be the ones who get the e-mails when you send them to that account.

And just know they we're kind of doing this for the first time, so we're having to deliberate on a lot of these -- a lot of these answers.

If you did not know that the abridged application due date has been extended, it has been extended from May 14 to June 15.

And if you didn't know about it, here's how you could've found out.

You can go join our e-mail updates list, and you can join specifically for flood and kind of ignore all the other topics if you want to.

But the way you get there is, you go to our website and click the envelope icon in the upper right-hand corner, and it'll kind of guide you from there.

But that's where we make most of these announcements.

It's probably the best way to find out about these kind of sudden certain things like the deadline shift.

And again, that new deadline is going to be June 15, which I think is a Monday.

So, that's it for that portion of the presentation.

I'm going to do a walk-through of the actual abridged application now.

And it looks a little something like this.

And this is the new version that we've uploaded with the new due date.

If you're filling one out with the old due date, nothing else changed.

So, you know, no sweat if you want to go ahead and turn that one in.

But we went ahead and changed it and uploaded a new version.

So, first, we have general information with entity name and type.

By type what we mean is, what kind of eligible political subdivision are you? Is it a city or a county or a district? Or, you know, I mentioned that the eligibility is a little bit different for this program, so we're just going to need to make really sure.

The contact information should ideally be someone who was involved in filling this thing out and can ask -- or, answer questions about the information that you provided.

It doesn't need to be that executive legal signatory, unless they really want to be the ones answering those kinds of questions.

Project information, the project name is totally up to you.

The amount requested from the TWDB, obviously, that's going to reflect your best understanding at the time that you filled this out, but you need to keep in mind that this process is based on a comparison of the amounts that are shown here on the abridged applications and the available program capacity, and that is the engine that results in the invitations for those full applications.

So, as we go on, the opportunities to increase the amount you're requesting beyond which you're indicating here on the abridged application, it will probably be pretty limited.

So, make sure that you request what you really think you're going to need.

If there's any financing from federal sources, you would indicate that on the line, followed by a line for the source of those federal investments.

Financing from any other sources would be on the line, say if there's another state agency or maybe some local financing or anything else.

And then they should add up to reflect a total project cost.

I mentioned it in any of the project categories the consideration for the grants requires a little bit of extra information.

And so, it's up to you whether you want to provide that extra info.

If you don't and you just want the 0% interest rate loan, you would click this box here and we would know not to look for additional extra stuff.

I also mentioned before that you'll have a chance to tell us which category you think it applies to, so you know, you can indicate category four, for example, if you think that what you're proposing belongs there.

This is, you know, will have a good idea of what category it belongs to [inaudible] review of the abridged app, but so, if there's any kind of discrepancy here we'll know to reach out and make sure that we understood your project correctly.

But I think, in many cases, it'll be -- it'll be kind of clear.

Minimum standards, we just finished talking about those.

This language on the left seems a little doom and gloom, like we're not going to complete the review if you don't check all the boxes.

Don't worry about that.

Just check the ones that are applicable to your project.

Again, we know what applies to your project and what doesn't when we review this thing.

This is -- these are just little tools to help you understand as well.

The description is going to be kind of important, because we're going to use this information to determine if your product is eligible.

We're going to use it to decide which category it belongs in.

And so, and we're going to try to, you know, get an understanding of what it is that you're proposing.

And so, it's ideally going to include, you know, sort of a problem statement, what is the issue? Where is it happening? What is the hopeful outcome? And what are the major elements of what you're proposing? What are -- if it's a big construction undertaking, what are the major construction components? If it's an activity, what are the major activities? And the degree of detail that you put here is probably going to vary.

I've noticed that a lot in our other programs.

But the information that we need to do our portion here is probably this one page that we're providing is more than enough, I think.

But if you do feel kind of limited by that, you're more than welcome to attach as many more pages as you would like.

Just know that if you're invited to submit those full applications, that's when you're going to be asked to provide substantially more detail.

And so, you will have the opportunity, it's just that the information we're taking here is for a different purpose.

The next page is that extra information you would need to provide if you want to be -- if you want the consideration for the grant funding.

And so, as you recall, it weighs heavily on things like AMHI, location, and MSA and things like that.

So, we've had a lot of questions about how to use this census data.

So, I'm going to take a quick tangent and show you how to do it.

The flood IUP on page 16 provides some information on the type of information -- on the type of data we would prefer that you use to provide the answers on that page.

And so, it's specifically the 2014 and 2018 American Community Survey five-year estimates.

For those of you not familiar with census data and with answering questions like this, you might be surprised how easy it is to just get the wrong answer and not, by any -- through any fault of your own, you know, you type in the search term and it gives you a number and you think great, and it turns out not to be the right one.

And that's because the data is sliced and diced in so many different ways.

There are all these different data tables and different datasets and community surveys.

And so, we're going to specify which ones we would like you to use.

So, if you're brave and you're good at the census website, you can go there and get it there.

But you don't have to because, in addition to this spreadsheet showing MSAs in Texas, we've also got this spreadsheet, and it includes all the census data that you're going to need.

I've opened a copy here and we can see that our columns include the AMHI, total population, the current and prior so we can determine population decline trends, and then we have the unemployment rate.

So, it's -- this is the -- what you're going to need to answer those questions.

And so, the way that you would do it, you'll note that we ask for weighted averages based on population.

So, I scrolled down to this website which has not only every county in Texas, but also every city and [inaudible] place.

And also, every census tract, and then every single blocker.

And I pretended that I have a project in Travis County.

And it serves many of the census tracts in Travis County.

I don't really know where these are, so this -- you know, don't get upset if this either does or does not include your area.

This is just an imaginary project.

It serves all these census tracts, and then parts of census tract 24.21.

And I think it has something like three or four block groups in it and I only selected two, just as a demonstration of how granular we can get here, but, you know, your project needs might be different.

The shape of the project Watershed is really up to the applicant to determine.

So, the way I came up with my weighted average annual median household income for these geographic areas, as you can see here in the popular -- in the formula, rather, at the top, I took the AMHI for each line, multiplied it by the corresponding population, added it to the same for the next line, added it to the next line, and so on, and I divided that sum by the total population, which in this case is the sum of column E.

And that came up with our weighted average AMHI based on the population.

Now, one of the questions that came up in our last webinar was, well, what if you don't know what census tracts your project is going to serve? You know, how do you determine that? And it kind of took for granted that, you know, everybody would have one of those, you know, a consultant with these fancy GIS datasets where they could kind of do this at the click of a button.

I had to kind of figure out my own way of doing it.

And so, I'm going to show you how I did it, and I can't guarantee this is what the Census Bureau would advise, but this is the way I made it work for myself.

You can go to data.census.gov, which is the new census data website.

This is the replacement for Factfinder, the American Factfinder, if you're familiar with that one.

I, unfortunately, can't promise that this one is any better in terms of usability yet, but I can tell that they're making improvements.

Go to advance search.

And then without applying any filters, just do a blank search.

And in the types of results that it's offering you, you can click maps and be taken to an interactive census data map.

So, we're going to zoom in on Texas.

And we're only seeing Texas right now because the geography is set at the state level.

So, if you're doing this, if you're going this far, I'm presuming that you have a shape that doesn't perfectly match counties and things like that, you're looking at census tracts and block groups.

So, we'll look down on this list and see if you can find those.

And there they are, census tract and census block group.

So, I'll look at the tracts first.

And voila, here we go.

As we kind of zoom in on these areas we'll see that, you know, not only can we click on a census tract and see its number, but we can also zoom in and labels will appear.

And then if you're kind of just trying to get a feel for the shape of your project area compared to the census tracts on the map, you can click select and that will kind of shade them.

And so, you can kind of compare the shape of your project watershed against what you're creating here.

Again, this is sort of the clunky way to do this.

This is actually -- I'm not even sure this is what this map is for.

But if you're stuck without names for your census geography and you don't know where to go to on that spreadsheet, maybe this will help.

And anyway, that's what I did.

So, back to the abridged application.

That was how you would answer the questions on this page for the consideration for grant funding.

Next, we have our actual prioritization criteria, and I'm not going to belabor those because we just went over them on the flood IUP.

But as you can see, we've got the rural applicant, emergency need, distributed benefits, and so on.

The tiebreaker.

And, of course, I mentioned on that interactive SVI map you can you do census tracts or counties.

So, we ask you to indicate which one you used.

A certification regarding the MOU.

Your call.

We don't need that executed MOU yet, but we need you to certify that the description of the project has gone out to those other political subdivisions and that we're going to see a list of who it's going to be.

And, of course, it might not be applicable to your project, and if that's the case, you can always just click N/A.

This is that extra information I made mention of for the flood infrastructure clearinghouse committee.

It's -- I think Kathleen is going to cover part of this.

But again, these are not questions for our funding.

This is questions to help determine your eligibility for funding through either General Land Office or the Texas Division of Emergency Management, or potentially both.

Here's another certification relating back to minimum standard.

This one relates to those NFIP minimum standard equivalent ordinances serving the project -- the project area.

And, of course, that was only applicable if the project wasn't to help satisfy those NFIP participation standards.

And so, if that's the case, you could click here.

There's an attachment checklist at the end.

We're not using this.

This isn't like one of those Scantron sheets where it'll spit it out as a wrong answer if you didn't put a check in the right place or something.

This is totally a tool for your benefit.

Again, we're going to kind of -- we're going to know what to look for and what is applicable based on our understanding of the categories and our review.

These are tools just to kind of help make sure that you're submitting a complete submittal.

If you miss something, in most cases, you know, it's not -- it's not the end of the world, it's just the starting point for some dialogue.

We'll reach out and ask about clarifications or missing information in most cases.

So, don't worry too much, but do use the attachment checklist to make sure that you're giving us everything that we need.

And here's that template MOU.

Again, you don't have to use our template, but you're more than welcome to do so.

And this, again, is for those flood control projects or the project watershed and is -- includes more than just the applicant's jurisdiction.

And so, this can be expanded to include as many entities as you need to include.

And that is the flood abridged application.

And with that, I'm going to pass it on to Kathleen Ligon for her portion.

Thanks, Tom.

I'm going to get my -- let's see.

There we go.

I'm going to share the site that I'm going to show you all real quick and make sure you can see it.

Okay, one more thing to get it ready for you all.

Here we go.

Okay, I'll give you a minute and make sure it pops up.

There we go.

So, I'm going to start by showing where to get the Flood Information Clearinghouse from our website.

But if you want to go directly there, it's the Texas Flood Clearinghouse [inaudible].

So, after the last legislative session, we started working really closely with the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the General Land Office to develop this thing called the Flood Information Clearinghouse.

And it was something that we were directed to do by little piece of Senate Bill, which is the bill that also included the flood infrastructure fund.

And so, like Lee mentioned, if you go to our flood landing page, which you get to by going to our website, twdb.texas.gov, if you click on flood, that takes you to the page that Lee showed you and you can find out really everything that we're implementing right now.

So, we have several new programs that we're implementing, not just the flood infrastructure fund.

And you can get the latest updates.

But like Tom mentioned, really the best thing to do is to sign up for this flood related -- well, excuse me, the flood -- wait, sorry, I'm showing you the wrong thing.

Let me go down.

Here it is.

You can get to it where Tom shows you in the top right corner of our website, or you can also sign up here, too, on sign up for e-mails on TWDB's new club programs.

And so, that's really the best way to keep up with all of the things they we're doing on the flood front.

So, you can get to the Flood Information Clearinghouse by clicking here.

Take you all to this page.

And so, like I mentioned, we started working really closely with the -- with [inaudible], and then we've also brought in some other agencies.

So, the website is kind of what I think of as the storefront.

And so, this is the -- what we were directed to do by the legislature, which is develop a clearinghouse of information about state and federal programs that may serve as a source of funding for flood projects.

And so, the first thing we did was, we wanted to get this website off the ground, but we also did another effort, which is really, we created a Flood Information Clearinghouse coordinating committee, and that's what we're calling the FLICC.

And it was modeled after something that you may be familiar with on the waterfront, and there's another committee called the Texas water infrastructure coordination committee, or the TWICC.

And so, we couldn't think of a clever name for the Flood Information Clearinghouse committee, so we just -- we copied the TWICC and we're calling this one the FLICC.

So, that's this backend effort of all of the agencies working together.

And so, we wanted to do that because really the last legislative session which gave us the flood infrastructure fund and [inaudible] process really represents a really big, new investment on the state level from the state legislature and flood mitigation.

And so, we want to make sure that we're working closely with our state and federal partners to make sure that we're making the best use of state and federal funding.

So, I'm just going to walk you all through this site real quick.

So, one of the things that we wanted to make clear to everyone is that this is really something that's primarily aimed at public entities.

So, that's oftentimes, you know, cities, counties, water districts, cogs, that type of thing.

We're really not providing individual assistance.

That's something that we direct you elsewhere for.

We also want everyone to know, too, that this is really a work in progress.

We would love to hear feedback.

We would like hear, you know, what you would like to see.

And as a kind of the next generation of this website, where we've just hired someone to start working on, doing a more interactive type site where you come to the site and you get interviewed.

And then you get an answer right on the spot of what could be the best source of financial assistance for your project.

And so, we're thinking of that as like a match.com for flood mitigation projects and funding.

So, that's to come in the future.

So, I'm just going to show you all what we have on here.

So, these two boxes at the top are charts that you can take a look at to just get a general idea of what types of programs might be -- might work for your project.

And you can see, if you look at something at the top, like a city or a county, you can see that you generally have pretty broad eligibility for the state and federal programs that are administered by the Water Development Board and TDEM and GLO.

If you scroll down and you look at something like a private entity, you can see that there's probably much fewer, you know, programs that would be a good fit.

So, this is really just to give you a general idea of what you might be eligible for.

And then, very similarly, is my project eligible? This is another chart.

It's still a work in progress, but we have TDEM and TWDB programs on here for now.

And we took this list as something that -- FEMA has a website on their programs, and so we started with that list.

And then we plugged in some other types of projects so it's not really meant to be comprehensive or an exhaustive list of project types, but it's just to give you a general idea of what types of projects are funded by what programs.

Let me back up.

What funding is available takes you to the funding opportunities page.

And this is where we list off the programs.

And I already know of at least one program that's missing that we're going to add.

The Corps of Engineers has a program that can fund flood, actually more than one program, so that's one of the things we're going to add.

So, like I said, it's a work in progress.

So, you can kind of scroll through the list and see what's available now.

Just a really quick description of the program and a link to go to the program site.

So, the first one at the top of the list is FEMA's new brick program, which is something they're rolling out this year.

It'll be administered by TDEM.

You can just see the different types of programs that are administered by different program -- by different agencies.

And one of the things that makes this particularly complicated is there are six -- at least six state agencies that administer these programs, and there's at least three to four federal funding pots that run through the state agency.

So, it's extremely complicated.

You can see that some of the programs are actually tied to a disaster.

For instance, the hazard mitigation program, it's for mitigation of future disasters, but it -- the funding is actually tied to a disaster that's already occurred.

So, this website is primarily aimed at mitigation for future flood events, but sometimes it's very hard to draw the line between past disasters or recovery programs.

The pre-disaster mitigation program that's been administered by TDEM in the past is being replaced by that new federal brick program.

And then we also include a couple of the dam repair programs that are administered by the Texas Commission of Environment Quality, and also the State Soil and Water Conservation Board.

So, let's go back.

So really, other than that page, the best -- the best way to use this site is to submit a request for information form.

So, I'll click here and show you what this is.

This form, it's not an application.

We want everybody to be clear on -- we'll give you all a second to load.

There we go.

We want it to be just something that anybody with general knowledge about a flood project at the local level could submit this form.

You don't need to have a technical consultant on hand to get the information ready for say like a real financial assistance application.

This is really just a general idea.

And we wanted to include just the bare minimum that the agencies need when we get together to point you towards one program or another.

And so, I'll just go through this real quick.

So, the very top few questions are just general contact information, the name of the project, who should we get in touch, what type of entity you are.

And I think Tom might have mentioned this, but sometimes we can't tell what type of entity you are, what [inaudible] under just -- by your name, so we need to know what you are.

We always need to know the project types.

And that's very project -- or, very program dependent.

Keep going.

And then there's some other just general questions, like are you looking for grants or loans or a combination of the two.

Are you already receiving federal funds? Are you expecting to receive some federal funds for the project? We need to know where you're located, because that's very disaster dependent.

And then also, was there a disaster involved? Number 14 is a question about hazard mitigation plans, which are often required for federal funding through FEMA.

Keep going.

Approximate project cost, and like I said, this doesn't have to be -- it doesn't have to be perfect, but we just want a general idea.

Number 18 in the project description, just an example of one of those -- kind of those pivotal pieces of information we need to know to direct you towards one program or another, and we need to know if your project involves enlargement of a dam or levy beyond the original footprint structure, because that limits the programs that would be a good fit and would often point you towards our flood infrastructure fund, or one of the other state programs.

The benefits cost ratio is something we would like to know, and it is important in some programs, but it's an optional question since we know that can be labor intensive to produce sometimes.

And then the last three questions involve questions about national flood insurance program insured structures, and that's important because that often points you towards the flood mitigation assistance program that we administer, the water development board administers.

And then, finally, the last question just wants you to acknowledge that you understand that this is a true application for financial assistance, this is really just a request for information.

So, I will head back to the website.

Attend an event, this is pretty minimum right now, but we're going to try to list events as they come up.

And I've got a few even to add to this.

There's really only our webinar is up there right now, but I think there's some that are going to be popping up soon.

Other resources, we have a list of things that are out there that might be of assistance to you, just general flood related.

And I'm sure we'll be adding more to this page as we move forward.

Back to the homepage.

Under recent news, this is kind of the biggest deal in the flood mitigation world in the last couple weeks.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development approved GLO's action plan for the $4.3 billion in disaster mitigation funds.

So, this is a huge pot of funding, and so I would encourage anyone who has a flood mitigation project to take a look at this and see if you might be eligible since it is so much funding and it's 100% grant.

So, I'll just click on this really quick.

You can just take a look at the map and see.

The actual action plan is a very long document.

I think it's a couple hundred pages.

But they did put together this nice summary that explains more about it.

Since it's a federal program, it's pretty complicated.

But you can take a look at the map and see and if you are located in one of these counties and were affected by either Hurricane Harvey or one of the 2016 -- or, excuse me, '15 or '16 flood events, then this could possibly be a good option for you.

And so, like Tom mentioned, we have included those questions from that form on our abridged application.

And so, for this first round of flood infrastructure financing, if you are filling out an abridged application, then we're going to be taking a look at it and will be funneling that through the FLICC committee, and we may get back to you and let you know, hey, there's this other pod of funding that you may want to look into.

So, we want everyone to get the best deal, and we also want the state to be spending resources wisely.

I think that's about all that I have.

And I will -- I'll hand it back over to Tom.

But if you do have any ideas for us for this site, we would love to -- love to hear from you.

Thanks everyone.

I'll pass it back to Tom.

All right, thank you, Kathleen.

Lee and I have been keeping an eye on the questions popping up so far as we go along.

And feel free to continue typing those out.

Any that we don't have a chance to answer today, we're going to take back and answer later.

And I think we're going to provide actually a question-and-answer document for both webinars in the near future.

We just need to vet some of those answers.

But one of the questions asked whether a benefit cost ratio of greater than one is a requirement to qualify for our funding? And for the best, most detailed answer, I would refer you to that page of the flood IUP, because it talks about it's not necessarily a requirement, but you do need to be prepared to explain why a proposal with a result less than one is still being proposed and is the, you know, best use of the -- of the funds.

You might -- you know, you might have a justification that's perfectly fine, it's just that you need to be prepared to provide some more information if you're dealing with the -- with the below one.

So, know a one or above is not a hard and fast requirement.

It's a strong, you know, it's a -- I think it could be described as a preference.

And again, I would recommend that you check out that page.

I believe is page four of the flood IUP to learn more about that particular minimum standard.

We also had a question about the total amount of funding available and whether there are going to be limits under any particular category.

Well, of course, the total amount that voters approved through Proposition 8 was 793 million.

And after using portions of that for a couple of other sources initially, Kathleen, do you recall exactly how much is for funding through FIF at this point? It's still over 700 isn't it? Yeah, I want to say it's -- well, so we used $7 million for match for the flood mitigation assistance program, and then we do have some put aside for administrative costs for the [inaudible] the program.

So, I want to say it's probably in the 780s.

Yeah.

I think that sounds like what I heard, too.

And so, it's not the full 793 anymore, but it's darn close to it.

There are no limitations within the categories.

But, you know, the board does have the right to sort of control things if they happen unexpectedly.

So, I think I mentioned earlier that we're kind of hoping to see a mix of proposals across all these different opportunities.

But what if, you know, they all fell into category one and they were all eligible for a 100% grant? Well, the board might need be to reach down the list and maybe pull up something else to help get a little bit more of a mix or, you know, vice versa.

If they're all long-term construction projects, they might want to pull something else up, or put a limit on the amount of grants and then start offering 0% loans if everybody starts to look like they're going to get a grant.

So, initially now, no, there are no formal caps or limits or things like that.

But, you know, there's going to be the potential and the flexibility to manage as is dictated by the needs that appear when we get those abridged applications in.

I would say, too, we don't have any sort of geographic restrictions, but if we were to receive all of our applications in, you know, one little tiny corner of the state, that would be something that could be problematic, too.

Yeah.

I think our board would really like to see a geographic -- a good geographic disbursement of funds.

Had one question about, essentially asking whether smaller, kind of localized projects are okay? You know, we're talking about incentivizing regionalization and collaborative planning and big projects and things like that.

So, what if you have, you know, an area around like one particular school or something like that that's flooding, is that still okay? And the answer is, yes.

You know, something like that would fall under category two and it would be a perfectly fine project.

So, there's not, you know, too localized or too small of a project to be able to do through the program either, even though we are kind incentivizing those collaborative regional benefit kind of things.

I'm going to see if any other questions have come up here.

So, is there a minimum or a maximum project cost? The answer to that one is no.

I'm going to follow up with the asker about the NFIP question to make sure I understand that correctly.

But that's a -- that's a good question.

There's a question about the general timing for funding, say from the initial application to when the funding is provided.

The preliminary timeline before, you know, the world went all topsy-turvy, had the abridged applications due on May 14.

And we were making the first actual financial assistance commitments by the fall.

And so, there's full applications that we invite in.

We were anticipating those coming in around August.

And so, and you know, and then the more straightforward, quote unquote, simpler planning studies that where maybe the application doesn't require as much review.

They could've been closing on loans maybe this calendar year.

I don't know enough to say how much that's affected by current events.

I know that this -- so, our abridged application deadline has jumped about a month, from May 14 to June 15.

And so, if you just assume that everything is going to be jumping by about a month, then you could assume that you'd be -- if you're invited, you'd be submitting a full application sometime in September.

And maybe, depending on the type of project that you're proposing, closing sometime in the winter or, at the very earliest, parts of spring of next year.

But again, beyond the actual extension of the abridged application period, I haven't really been part of any conversations about how to adjust the subsequent steps.

And so, I would definitely keep your ear to the ground about that.

Tom, there's a question that came in about the FEMA development block grant funding the map that I just showed you all.

And if you go to the Information Clearinghouse site, which is Texas Flood Information Clearinghouse, you can get a link there.

I think there are three or four links to the GLO recovery site.

So, that's just general land office recovery, and they've got a really comprehensive website with all kinds of information about that funding.

So, you can get to it just by Googling it, or you can visit the Texas Flood Information Clearinghouse.

Yeah.

We had a request for some -- for the URL for the ACS census data and for the -- that was used for the AHMI determination, if you'll look in your little go to meeting console there on the side of the screen, there's a section that says handouts.

And under that section, we have the actual presentation from today.

And on one of my first slides I actually had the URL where we have the flood intended use plan.

And the spreadsheet that I used is on page 16 of that flood intended use plan.

And if you have trouble finding that, I'll respond in an e-mail to this person and give them an actual link to it.

But that's the -- maybe the best way to get that.

Can projects take longer than 36 months? Yes.

Short answer, yes.

The prioritization points were more just for a -- they're just a prioritization of the ones that can get finished within 36 months.

But if they take longer, that's totally fine.

Are applications approved for funding on a rolling basis, or will they all be evaluated collectively? So, it's a collective evaluation.

It's the sort of thing where we'll continue to take proposals, but there will be certain beginning and end points to each funding cycle where everything that's in-house at that point and hasn't been considered yet would be considered at that point.

And so, it's -- they're accepted on a rolling basis, considered on a -- on a scheduled basis.

We have a question.

Can a private consultant submit on behalf of a city or county entity if they submit a letter stating that the consultant is serving as their agent? Yes, in fact, we see that kind of approach used pretty frequently in our other programs.

It's pretty standard.

Could the local match be the 0% interest rate loan? And I presume this is an inquiry about category one.

If you're pursuing the grant funding under category one, the -- then that's where that local match part is triggered.

And that only exists in category one.

And so, if you're going to get that grant portion, then we are looking for a local contribution to cover the rest.

And that's, again, unique category one.

So, no, not in that particular case.

A very good question.

How would you recommend cities approach the application if they have multiple projects? You are welcome to submit as many projects as you want, but you're going to need to submit them separately, because they'll be prioritized and scored individually.

And so, they might not all get invited, but you can submit -- you can have as many in any funding cycle as you would like to submit.

Is there a local match required for grants? No, there's a local contribution on category one projects.

And that can be an in-kind contribution.

It can -- it doesn't need to be cash or anything like that.

Categories two through four do not require any kind of local contribution, but you can get grants in those categories as well.

The loan terms in terms of months and years, I have not seen that worked out for certain yet.

And I'm tempted to answer with experience from our previous -- from our other programs, but I'm going to resist that temptation and wait until we can develop some actual guidance on that.

Would a council of governments need a local municipality as a sponsor to apply? So, this is where it's kind of crucial to pay attention to the eligible applicants and how it differs between categories, because a cog would be eligible to apply under category one, but is not eligible to apply under categories two, three, or four.

So, the answer is yes and no.

I haven't seen any more new ones pop up.

Let's see.

Tom, did you see the one about the level of engineering for category four? No, is that the one we got in through e-mail? No, it's on the webinar.

Oh okay.

For category four level of engineering, in terms of the -- so, when it comes to level of engineering on the actual evaluation of the projects, the -- that's going to be the kind of thing that we request with a full application, and the guidance associated with that full application is still under development.

And so, I can't answer that for certain, but I can tell you that we're getting close to releasing that.

We had some guidance relating to that kind of topic that was under review by the Society of Civil Engineers and we just got that back and we're going to be making some edits and releasing that.

So, that's a full application phase kind of consideration guidance coming soon.

Tom, there's a good one that came in on the [inaudible] e-mail.

It is, are we required to sign an MOU [inaudible] that are part of the watershed? So, those that are part of the [inaudible] watershed.

Additionally, which source should we use for the determination of boundaries of our watershed [inaudible].

This is a -- that's a question that probably exceeds my technical knowledge.

We probably have to talk to one of our flood science folks about that.

My understanding is that the sub-watershed and watershed, for the purposes of this, might actually just kind of be interchangeable.

They're both just watersheds associated with the project.

And so, if the sub-watershed matches the contours of your benefit area, then that would be it.

But we -- we're going to need to follow up with a more detailed answer on that one.

We had an e-mail, Kathleen, about the $4.3 billion in funding, did you already answer that one? They're looking for the name of the website again, or the URL.

Yeah, that's just -- it's General Land Office Recovery.

Good, okay.

And there's several links on the Information Clearinghouse website, too.

Tom, did you see this one about how long does it take -- usually take to get a response on the project application? I did not see that one.

That's a good question.

Well, unfortunately, there isn't usually just, yeah, because we're kind of trying this out for the first time.

But what you can expect if you submit an abridged application is sort of an immediate feedback to say, hey, we got it.

And then there's going to be a period of time where we just need to dive in and do the preliminary review.

I would expect some contact certainly within a matter of weeks.

If you're going to be -- if it looks like it's going to be invited, you usually are given an indication that it's going that way.

But the -- you know, I don't know what to -- what other expectations to give at this point.

We're just going to have to kind of see how many staff are working on the review and how complicated it is, how many of them we receive.

Level of engineering came up again for category two.

Same thing.

We have this figured out as far as the abridged application goes, but for the - for the kind of information that you would need to -- or, the actual project management kind of documentation, the things you're submitting as you go through the project, and in the actual application requirements for the engineering, that's still kind of underdevelopment.

We expect to see that pretty soon.

That's a separate shop and I get copied on some of those e-mails.

I know it's moving actually this week, but I don't know exactly where.

And I'm sorry to say that there are no educational credits for professionals associated with this webinar.

We often do try to get them for you.

But it's -- they run a tight shop over there.

Tom, I think we only have one more question where it says, how many timing cycles do we think we will have? That is our last.

Oh wow.

Well, you know, it could go, I guess, many different ways, you know.

We have the funding that was approved by voters as this one-time kind of transfer thing.

And you all might remember voting in November of 2013 for kind of a similar thing where we were responding to drought, way at the other end of the pendulum.

And that worked a little bit differently.

The voters approved an investment in what became a revolving sort of set up.

And so, that program is going to go on for decades.

And so, there are a lot of folks who are hoping that this one does the same thing, that maybe there's going to be some early success that's going to generate even more enthusiasm with the legislature and folks like that.

And that, you know, this mechanism might continue to get further investments and be able to provide funding for projects for decades and decades and decades.

But that, you know, it's -- at this point, all we can do is speculate.

We just kind of have to do our best with it and kind of go through each legislative session.

The -- you know, I think that everybody's kind of crystal ball says something a little bit differently on that front.

I would say, Tom, that it would be great to have a lot of interest upfront in the program, and that would demonstrate to the legislature that we really do have a need for it.

It's a great point.

But, Tom, one last -- another [inaudible] e-mail.

It says, can you apply with a project that you submitted to TWDB under a previous funding program 12 years ago, but that you have not selected at that time? Yes, you can submit to multiple programs at once and see which one is -- which way the wind is going to blow for you.

You can resubmit a project that didn't work in another program or through another agency, no problem.

That's -- nothing to prevent that.

Okay, I think that is it for the questions that we've had right now.

If nothing else comes in in the next few seconds, I will say that we will start wrapping.

Lee, there's one last question about did the vehicle in the picture make it out [laughter]? That was in 1963, I'm sure that it did, so [laughter].

It might still be there if it didn't.

Right, absolutely.

So, all right, well, thank you everyone for participating in our webinar today.

And thanks to Tom and Kathleen for their great presentations.

Again, if you have further questions, please go ahead and e-mail us at twdb.texas.gov.

And please note, again, we will do our best to answer questions that come in a timely manner.

However, due to the complexity of the program, there may be questions may need to be researched further.

Your patience is appreciated.

And we'll be posting the more general questions and answers in our website, and also replying individually to the [inaudible].

So, the webinar is now concluded.

Good bye, and I hope everyone gets outside and enjoys the rest of this beautiful day.