The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC, just issued a major critique of FEMA, titled The Federal Emergency Management Agency: Floods, Failures, and Federalism. Full report is 32 pages, including 9 pages of footnotes! [But he managed to miss Emergency Management; the American Experience, 1900-2010, edited by the Diva.]

I agree with some of his points, but surely not the general thrust of the piece.  Update: I have already heard from several readers about this article, some of which are in the comment section below. (Others were direct emails to the Diva.) And fellow blogger, Eric Holdeman, picked up on the report today.

And a couple of people who are readers of this blog are quoted in the CATO piece.

Hot off the press (or the Internet and your printer) a new report from Office of Inspector General at DHS titled Major Management and Performance Challenges Facing the Dept. of Homeland Security.

The Diva has just skimmed it and did not see a mention of FEMA until page 14 of the 41 page report.  There are some interesting details about FEMA on pages 14 and 15. And I recommend Appendix A for a nice listing of Relevant Reports.

UPDATE: On Nov. 18, the Wash Post published this article: Growing pains continue for Department of Homeland Security, report shows

The Diva does not usually do breaking news flashes, but a couple of fresh emails from the DHS Office of Inspector General regarding financial matters at FEMA probably are of special interest to this audience. For a full list of DHS/OIG reports dealing with FEMA, go to this website.  The two most recent releases are as follows:

OIG Audit Cites Millions in Unaccounted-for Funds

A New Orleans nonprofit that received more than $19 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for damage sustained during Hurricane Katrina has so far accounted for only $5.3 million and engaged in prohibited contracting practices, according to an audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG), Department of Homeland Security.

The OIG found that the University Of New Orleans Research and Technology Foundation (Foundation) did not follow Federal contracting guidelines, which call for “open and free competition,” as well as opportunities for small business and those owned by women or minorities. On that basis, the OIG questioned more than $9.6 million in contract payments.
OIG auditors further determined that the Foundation, which was originally awarded $12 million by FEMA, ran up $7 million in cost overruns without obtaining required permission from FEMA.

They also noted that the Foundation’s accounting for taxpayer funds was still far from complete, eight years after Katrina and an average of four years after all repair projects were completed.

Flawed FEMA System Could Hamper Disaster Relief

After spending more than $247 million on a high
tech system, the Federal Emergency Manage- ment Agency (FEMA) may still not be able to efficiently deliver emergency supplies to survivors of a catastrophic disaster, an Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit has found.

The report, “FEMA’s Logistics Supply Chain Management System May Not Be Effective During a Catastrophic Disaster,” found the system, developed over nine years, cannot interface with those of its partners and suppliers, making it difficult to track and locate emergency supplies. The report also noted that FEMA does not have enough trained employees to manage the system.

I now have direct links to all of the reports. I have not yet had time to read them all, but they appear to be a significant recap of the many reports both the OIG and GAO have completed in recent years.

As of Monday aft., here is the revised version of what is available:

#1: From HS Today, article titled “FEMA Under Fire for Excessive Costs and Mismanagement of Disaster Aid Programs.” Some quotes from that article:

In an attempt to stem the increasing costs of disaster aid programs, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently advanced proposals to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster response and recovery programs.

 

The OIG and GAO detailed systemic risk issues within the various grant programs that have led to redundancy of disaster aid requests and managerial issues within FEMA.

The OIG report said many of those responsible for administering disaster grant programs have little to no experience managing federal grants and are often disaster survivors themselves, resulting in ineligible and unsupported costs and noncompliance with federal contracting requirements.

 

“In June 2011, we found that FEMA’s Strategic Human Capital Plan did not define critical skills and competencies that FEMA would need in the coming years or provide specific strategies and program objectives to motivate, deploy and retain employees, among other things,” GAO said. “As a result, we recommended that FEMA develop a comprehensive workforce plan that identifies agency staffing and skills requirements, addresses turnover and staff vacancies, and analyzes FEMA’s use of contractors.”

 

While demand grows for professionally trained managers, FEMA is forced to hire from a population pool with no real world experience or training in disaster management. Until this gap in experience is filled, FEMA will have no choice but to continue to hire unqualified managers and put those employees through extensive disaster management training.

#2: Here is the link directly to the GAO site for their recent testimony report (18 pp) titled FEMA: Opportunities to Achieve  Efficiencies and  Strengthen Operations.

#3: Here is the link to the DHS IG report based on testimony to the Senate on July 24 (38 pp).

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Thanks to reader Christine Lilly-Holbrook for the URL for the last-mentioned report.

A 44-page report titled FEMA Strategic Plan (2014-2018).
I found priorities #4 and 5 the most interesting.

FEMA published the National Protection Framework this past week. This is the fifth framework for the national preparedness mission.

Three new FIOP ( Federal Interagency Operational Plans) also are available at this site. They are the ones for mitigation, recovery, and response.

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Update: See Eric Holdeman’s blog posting on the topic of the new Strategic Plan.

Written testimony of FEMA Administrator for a March 13 Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Relations, and the District of Columbia hearing on FEMA’s FY 2015 Budget Request.

The Diva listened to part of the testimony and the questions from the committee chairman.  One new item  caught my eye. Among the five strategic priorities he listed, the second of those is “become an expeditionary organization.” (See page 2 of written statement.) Now that is a new term for me. The term is not really described anywhere;on page 7 of the testimony, the only discussion is as follows:

As part of FEMA’s effort and its stated strategic priority to become an expeditionary organization, the Agency is working to develop a leader, more agile workforce that is well equipped, educated and trained.

I sent an email to Craig Fugate asking for clarification, and he was gracious enough to reply the same day. Here is his explanation:

Become an Expeditionary Organization. Through this strategic priority, FEMA seeks to increase and improve engagement across the preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation mission areas by being present in the right place, at the right time and with the right people and resources. FEMA will work with our partners across the whole community to align with the needs and expectations of our partners.

Just because it works at 500 C street doesn’t mean it will work in ( a disaster, your state, your community, etc.)

[For those outside of Washington, DC, the street mentioned is the location of FEMA HQ!]

New: On March 13, FEMA Director Craig Fugate testifired at a Senate Committee re the FEMA budget. His testimony is available from this website.

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From Fierce Homeland Security:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency would receive $10.38 billion under President Obama’s fiscal 2015 budget, up from $9.96 billion enacted for this year.

The Disaster Relief Fund would receive an $813 million increase to $7.03 billion. That would cover costs for past catastrophic events including Hurricane Sandy as well as enough funding for new non-catastrophic disasters, based on the 10 year average. The request assumes that Congress would pay for catastrophic disasters that occur in 2015 through emergency supplemental funds.

Additional details for those who really want to dig into the numbers:

The White House released more budget documents on Monday, including a breakdown of Homeland Security funding by agency and budget account, an analysis of homeland security funding and a table of historical funding.

 2015 Homeland Security Budget Request Breakdown
Homeland Security Mission Funding by Agency and Budget Account
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2015/assets/homeland_supp.pdf

Table of Historical Funding
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2015/assets/hist.pdf

National Preparedness: Actions Taken by FEMA to Implement Select Provisions of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. . GAO-14-99R, November 26.

In light of this report, it appears to me that FEMA has a lot of homework to do!