Two officials with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) acknowledged during a hearing this week that the agency knowingly stalled sending hurricane relief funding to Puerto Rico after missing a legally required deadline to do so.

HUD’s chief financial officer, Irv Dennis, and David Woll, the department's principal deputy assistant secretary for community planning and development, appeared before a House Appropriations subcommittee for a hearing on Thursday.

The officials said that the agency missed a deadline issued by Congress to start a process to help Puerto Rico receive billions in federal housing funds that Congress had allocated after Hurricane Maria hit the island in 2017.

HUD was supposed to deliver funding notices to 18 states hit by natural disasters by Sept. 4. It successfully published all the notices except for the one for Puerto Rico. The notice’s publication would have allowed the territory to begin crafting a plan to help manage the disaster relief funds.