Donna Butler, director of the Office of Recovery and Resiliency, told a community meeting that Volusia County has a draft action plan to deploy $133,500,000 in Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG‑DR) funds allocated for Hurricane Milton, with an emphasis on mitigation and housing buyouts.

The plan matters because HUD requires certain limits and timelines: at least 15% of funds must be used for mitigation, 70% of the total must benefit low‑ and moderate‑income persons, and the funds must be spent within six years, Butler said. The plan is posted for a required 30‑day public comment period and, if revised with public comments, is slated to go to the county council in the first May meeting for approval and submittal to HUD.

Butler said Congress appropriated a federal disaster package in February and HUD published a Federal Register notice allocating $133,500,000 in CDBG‑DR to Volusia County for Hurricane Milton. She summarized the broad funding breakdown in the draft: 5% administration, 5% planning, 30% housing (about half of which the plan would devote to buyouts), 47% infrastructure (with a $62,000,000 top infrastructure bucket noted), and a mitigation set‑aside shown as 13% in the draft budget (Butler emphasized HUD requires at least 15%).

Butler described the funds as "last resort" dollars that require calculation of duplication of benefits: private insurance, FEMA, SBA, and other funding sources must be counted before CDBG‑DR fills the gap. "If a project costs a hundred thousand dollars and you've received $75,000 for that benefit, you have to put that money into that, and we pay the difference, which is $25,000," she said.

The county used an unmet needs analysis drawing on FEMA registration data and other sources. Butler said about 44,000 people or families registered with FEMA and that housing impacts totaled approximately $326,000,000. She said local support provided was listed as "135" in her presentation and that the initial unmet housing need was about $191,000,000 after accounting for known support; the county added a 30% resiliency factor to estimated costs to reflect expected rising costs when projects go to bid.

On infrastructure, Butler summarized aggregated impacts that totaled roughly $333,000,000 with an unmet infrastructure need she reported at approximately $371,000,000. Eligible CDBG‑DR activities Butler listed include housing rehabilitation and buyouts, infrastructure repair or reconstruction for public facilities, economic revitalization (for example job training or commercial district improvements), and mitigation measures that improve resilience of infrastructure or facilities.

Regarding buyouts, Butler said housing buyout programs under the Milton allocation will generally require household income at or below the HUD income limits (for example, the presentation listed $46,400 for a one‑person household and $76,850 for a six‑person household). She clarified that if a city proposes an infrastructure project that requires acquiring property, that property acquisition follows a different process and does not necessarily require homeowner income qualification. "If we do a buyout in the city of DeLand, for example, buy someone's home, that city has to agree to either keep it as green space or turn it into stormwater infrastructure," she said; otherwise the buyout cannot proceed.

Butler recounted outreach conducted to prepare the plan: five community meetings (one in each district), a public survey with more than 500 responses (94% from residents, 1% nonprofits, 2% business owners, 1% local government, 2% other), and stakeholder engagement with cities and state emergency management data sources. Survey respondents ranked mitigation highest, then housing; among housing respondents, 55% preferred a buyout program.

Next steps Butler outlined are completion of the 30‑day public comment period, incorporation of comments and responses into the action plan, county council review and approval (targeted for the first May meeting), and then submission to HUD for review and a signed grant agreement before funding activities can begin. Butler also noted that the county must tie infrastructure projects to Hurricane Milton damages except for activities paid from the mitigation set‑aside, which may be broader in purpose.

The county plan as presented contains several policy constraints and dependencies, including HUD national objective rules (benefit to low‑ and moderate‑income persons, urgent need, or prevention/elimination of slum/blight), duplication‑of‑benefit rules, and HUD review/approval. Butler invited questions and comments at the close of the presentation.