Returning EM Responsibilities to the States. How’s That Working For You?
As we’re all aware, the current administration has constantly stated that they want to return responsibility for disaster relief back to the states. The mechanism to accomplish this is largely through either the elimination or significant restructuring of FEMA and transferring responsibility for administration of the Disaster Relief Fund to the Whitehouse. While we could debate the usefulness of a FEMA with no access to relief funds, the sad fact is that the Whitehouse is already calling the shots on relief funding.
In the past, the President made the decision on declaring a disaster quickly. During my time at FEMA Region IX, it was not unusual to come to work in the morning and be on a plane that evening. Now requests are not processed as received but are batch processed, delaying a response by weeks or even months. According to data compiled by Carnegie’s Disaster Dollar Database, disaster requests are being processed on roughly a bi-monthly basis. The data shows one gap of fifty-one days between July and September, despite a series of severe storms and flooding in the Midwest and Great Plains.
So, what’s the big deal? The problem is that without a declaration FEMA has no authority to provide the direct federal response needed in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. This means it can not deploy, establish a joint field office, or fund mission assignments to other federal agencies. This is important because, by definition, a disaster exceeds the resources available to state and local governments and direct federal response becomes critical in filling the gap. In addition, the federal government has specialized resources not normally available in most states.
The public perception is that FEMA is all about providing disaster relief funding, forgetting this direct response mission. However, programs such as Individual Assistance are also dependent on the timing of a Presidential Disaster Declaration. FEMA cannot take applications for assistance without the funding provided by a declaration, meaning that immediate assistance to displaced survivors suffers from substantial delays. This translates to no immediate assistance such as intermediate sheltering or home repair funds.
To make matters worse, while the Disaster Relief Fund is still solvent, it is expected to end the fiscal year with a barely positive balance according to the August report to Congress. Consequently, FEMA has been operating as if under an Immediate Needs Status by prioritizing immediate response needs over reimbursing jurisdictions for recovery activities. What this means is that jurisdictions in recovery mode are suffering substantial delays in reimbursements, with a resultant impact on municipal budgets. In some cases, the delayed funding can far exceed a jurisdictions annual budget.
The delays in deploying FEMA and reimbursing jurisdictions for recovery expenditures share a common thread: the desire to reduce the impact on the Disaster Relief Fund and prevent the need to request additional funding from Congress before the end of the fiscal year. This a clear case of prioritizing appearance over substance. Given the high likelihood that there will be a government shutdown, the situation is liable to get worse before it improves.
The problem is compounded by the refusal of the administration to recognize the importance of mitigation. On April 4, the President became the first President in 27 years to refuse a request for disaster mitigation funding in a Presidential Disaster Declaration for Virginia. In an April 21st memo, then FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton recommended that the President not automatically approve funding for hazard mitigation in disaster declarations and this has largely been the case since.
Also in April, FEMA ended the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), cancelled all BRIC applications from Fiscal Years 2020-2023, and froze $3.6 billion of unspent funds that had been approved for states. The BRIC program was the successor to the Pre-disaster Mitigation Program and was intended to assist communities in preparing for disasters before they occurred. Since funds were allocated and applications approved, many communities had already let contracts and begun capital projects, and the cancellation of federal funding will mean the cancellation of many of these initiatives.
This is the emergency management program we are being offered by the Republican Administration. Expect to handle a crisis that exceeds your resources without the deployment of federal resources to assist. Be prepared to fund relief for individuals and communities. Find your own funding to make your community safer. There’s talk of block grants that can be used by states, but will you be able to administer it? Given the administration’s demonstrated unwillingness to spend money already allocated for disaster relief, can you be assured it will even be available?
Yeah, how’s that working for you?