But now, a new federal requirement — via enactment of Section 313 of the Homeland Security and Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act of 2026 (H.R. 7147) — could give localities greater visibility into how reimbursements are tracked and distributed.
The provision requires the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to create an “interactive dashboard” on its public website tracking reimbursement requests tied to FEMA’s Public Assistance Program.
FEMA is compelled to publish project-level information tied to reimbursement requests, including cost estimates, submission dates, project descriptions and funding breakdowns, the National Association of Counties (NACo) said in a news release commending the requirement.
The data must be made publicly accessible and updated as requests move through the federal review process, with reimbursement information required to be posted within 90 days of FEMA's receiving it and again within 60 days after a project reaches final review at the Department of Homeland Security.
NACo hailed the move, describing it as “one of the most significant transparency reforms in federal disaster assistance in recent memory.”
“When disasters strike, county emergency managers and first responders are first on the scene, and long after, we take the lead to rebuild our communities,” NACo President J.D. Clark said in a statement. “For too long, counties have submitted project worksheets and waited — sometimes years — without clear visibility into where our reimbursement stands or why it was delayed.”
The dashboard mandate follows a broader push by NACo’s Intergovernmental Disaster Reform Task Force, which recently brought county leaders from 13 states to Washington, D.C., to advocate for changes to federal disaster policy. And the timing reflects growing pressure on the recovery system itself, with NACo revealing that 680 counties experienced at least one federally declared disaster in 2025.
Cynthia Lee Sheng, co-chair of the task force and president of Jefferson Parish, La., said that through her position within the group, she has “seen firsthand how much counties have been let down by a lack of visibility into the [public assistance] PA process” and that “transparency reform is long overdue.”
Beyond the immediate policy implications, the move also mirrors a larger trend unfolding across government technology. Public-facing dashboards have increasingly become standard tools for tracking various types of data from health-care response to infrastructure spending. FEMA’s dashboard would bring that same transparency model to the disaster reimbursement process.
