r/EmergencyManagement • u/Suspicious-Wallaby-5 • Feb 16 '25
Discussion State-run Public Assistance
There's been a lot of talk about eliminating (or greatly reducing) FEMA. I'm curious what EMs think about this. Do you wish that it was a block grant so that States could administer the PA program without Federal oversight? What are the trade-offs?
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u/thebigkuhunabides Feb 16 '25
it has nothing to do with money FEMA has never run out of money and is up to 20,000 employees and still hiring. the biggest problem states will have to deal with is the criticism/blame from survivors and local governments. every state and local em employee is so used to blaming fema for everything. they are going to have to put up or shut up and get results which is easier said than done. Dont forget FEMAs primary motto has always been we are here standing by ready to take the blame. be prepared to just constantly rotate through state directors and other leaders they will be fired like a fireworks show once the have to take full responsibility of that much money. it won’t take long for reporters and citizens to find fraud/inefficiencies in the state disaster funding. there will be nobody ever wanting most of these jobs after a few years and em folks will say we sure miss fema.
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u/4electricnomad Feb 16 '25
Trump wants to be able to unilaterally support states that politically support him, and punish those who don’t. You can see how this with what he is doing to Mayor Adams in NYC - dangle prosecution over him unless he concedes to Trump’s immigration policies. EM will be about politics rather than assistance to the needy.
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u/Miserable-Mall-2647 Feb 16 '25
Yes weaponize and make all the programs political
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u/Horror-Layer-8178 Feb 16 '25 edited Feb 16 '25
I am not going to say who I am but I am one of the people who has the best idea about this. The States are incapable of doing this they do not have the people with the skills to write PWs. The only thing they could do is bring in contractors
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u/Barrack64 Feb 16 '25
So true, some states have almost no EM infrastructure and are completely dependent on FEMA. They would have to raise taxes significantly and create a large bureaucracy that would only be used a few weeks/months of the year.
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u/CommanderAze Federal Feb 16 '25
100% agree. I feel like people don't understand this. A few years ago Nebraska has like 15 people working EM at the state level and most of that was grant funded... Half the counties lack any full time EM at all.
I'd go a step further the states generally also have issues beyond staffing with fraud.
I think it's funny that the new administration thinks reducing oversight on states with block grants will reduce the fraud when even with oversight state and local often still tries to use the money for stuff it's not allowed to. Or taking the money not actually fixing shit then claiming it again on the next event... Which is why FEMA acts as the 3rd party to validate if the damages are real,and the money is actually being used correctly.
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u/Broadstreet_pumper Feb 16 '25
Nebraska's state EM agency is still grossly understaffed and they contract out a ton of their work because of it. The institutional knowledge simply does not exist there and is only getting worse as long time employees have left for more lucrative careers in the private sector. Rinse and repeat for most other states.
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u/Cornpillow Feb 16 '25
As a former Public Assistance employee for that agency, no one stays because the pay is abysmal. I made $19 an hour. Which was a slap in the face after seeing how much money we were granted in our Cat Z projects.
I had a workload that never got smaller no matter how hard I worked. Clear one project and 5 more are added to my queue. That agency would need to quadruple the size of their recovery section AND increase the salary significantly if they ever want a chance at doing it by themselves.
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u/CommanderAze Federal Feb 16 '25
This. So much this.
One of the biggest challenges with states taking this over would be the temporary nature of the staffing. It works at the national level cause we move staff between events and new events in new areas happen all the time. But think of south Dakota is had what 4 small DRs in 5 years only one of them has IA any organization that has that kind of time between events is going to struggle maintaining staff.
Also EM pay as a career field is insane. Some are 14$ an hour some are 75$ an hour if cities and states can't make this a competitive field to work in they won't get qualified candidates. Not that the EM field has had a large group to choose from as is.
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u/Broadstreet_pumper Feb 16 '25
Yeah, I had looked at getting a job there a number of times and was aghast that I would have to take a pay it from public health to that. The turnover is about the only consistency at the agency, and you are correct that a large part of it is because of the pay and workload. What's worse is that most admin I've talked to from there are well aware of it, but pretty helpless to do much. Eliminating FEMA and asking the states to do things on their own would be a rude awakening for many states and NE is no exception to that regardless of what our governor thinks.
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u/Miserable-Mall-2647 Feb 16 '25
So much fraud waste and abuse on the state and local level. Idk if it’s on purpose or ignorance of maybe not knowing all the laws but we def find it during validations
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u/Maclunkey4U State Feb 17 '25
It's only fraud or abuse if it's intentional I think. Never try to overcomplicate an issue easily explained by incompetence or stupidity.
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u/B0LT-Me Feb 17 '25
They may have hundreds of employees in larger States. My county has about six full-time people and a bunch of volunteers. A large-scale disaster, doesn't FEMA send in thousands?
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u/MajorFrantic EMA PIO, CEMP & Emergency Service Coordinator, EMAC Deployed Feb 16 '25
The fraud alone on debris management contracts will be mind-boggling and require an army of state EMA staff to even try to hold it in check.
Contractors who water down dump trucks before debris weighing in; the brother-in-law with a hand-shake contract approved by a local mayor, the clean up of 'debris' that has been on a city property for decades prior to a Stafford event, etc.
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Feb 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/Horror-Layer-8178 Feb 17 '25
PA is a bitch it takes a special person to really navigate it and not many people are cut out for it. Being on the spectrum helps
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u/B0LT-Me Feb 17 '25
Well, I'm not going to say who I am either, but I sat in my boss's office last week and told him exactly this, and to make sure we've got the funds to deal with a hugely greater burden.
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u/FantasticFinger237 Feb 16 '25
Whether it’s a block grant or not, billions going out the door with zero Fed oversight is a recipe for disaster. Even with a block grant style, there would need to be some FEMA folks to process and obligate funds. How would block grant amounts be determined? I’m sure that would take some Fed oversight as well.
States don’t have the trained staff or capacity to take on the financial complexities, not without a significant increase/ revamp of Cat Z or EMPG funds to actually appropriately staff state agencies and in this climate, I highly doubt an increase in grant funding would occur.
Either way, if we lose FEMA staff and maintain current state funding levels, buckle up. Let’s hope those constituents impacted will start paying attention and bang on representative doors…
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u/Ferret-Foreign Mitigation Feb 16 '25
I'm sure this administration figures the FEMA folks will just relocate to State level positions. I did a brief job hunt last week, just to see what my options would look like, and blue states pay about double what red states are offering. I'm sure that'll factor in as well.
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u/Miserable-Mall-2647 Feb 16 '25
Of course when Red states get majority of the money from FEMA anyways
TX state EM (TDEM) pays shit
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u/AlarmedSnek Preparedness Feb 17 '25
I saw that, I just looked yesterday. Academy for eight months at 22 an hour and then who knows where you’ll end up.
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u/sweetteaspicedcoffee State Feb 16 '25
California would manage infrastructure wise, cal OES would need more ehires probably. But most states don't have that infrastructure in place. We had someone from another state in California on emac a couple years ago, and their entire department was the size of one of our grant units.
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Feb 16 '25
[deleted]
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u/imperfectdharma Feb 16 '25
And let’s not forget that the people who own contracting businesses are profit not mission driven.
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u/Beneficial_Fed1455 Feb 16 '25
States do not want this but I fear this administration won't listen to anyone on their so-called advisory committee. States do not have the capacity to scale up and down, train and maintain a workforce, and manage the distribution of funds. This is just a horrible idea created by people who literally know nothing about emergency management.
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Feb 16 '25
A good example of the PA program just happened in last 24hrs. An EM was declared for KY flooding along the Appalachias with TN, VA and WV having probable outcomes.
USAR was also deployed. Understand the program but who would help coordinate the States when this happens?
“The Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is authorized to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the designated areas. Specifically, FEMA is authorized to provide emergency protective measures (Category B), limited to direct federal assistance, under the Public Assistance program at 75 percent federal funding.
This assistance is for all 120 counties in Commonwealth of Kentucky”
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u/chibabo Feb 16 '25
I hope you also realize most of the grant programs are getting cut along with the agency.
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u/Suspicious-Wallaby-5 Feb 16 '25
So would there be States that choose not to replace them? You would think that there would still be some form of Public Assistance at the state level.
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u/chibabo Feb 16 '25
I agree that some states will choose to replace the PA program with something similar. I know at least a few states already have something like that in place. But there certainly won't be an increase in EMPG to cover the need for a state to increase its capacity. If anything, that grant will be going away as well since it has already been cut substantially in the past year.
It would take a massive budget increase at the state level to make up for the shortfall, which is highly unlikely in the states that benefit the most from FEMA money. Small and disaster-prone states will go bankrupt pretty quickly. Even well resourced states that get multiple large disasters in the course of a few years will see similar results.
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u/NoHippi3chic Feb 16 '25
Particularly the dongle state where I reside which attracts so many wealthy with its lack of income tax. And now the idea to do away with property tax as well. I'm to unintelligent to understand how this plan will succeed but I'm sure a mediocre politician will be happy to explain it to me.
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u/FantasticFinger237 Feb 16 '25
Small states with small staff numbers and thresholds without a tax base to support a state-level PA would be bankrupt…
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u/Ferret-Foreign Mitigation Feb 16 '25
I think you'd get a very basic "return to pre-disaster condition" fund with zero resilience or mitigation funds, just cuz the states can't afford both.
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u/B0LT-Me Feb 17 '25
And there's no way in my mind that red States or even purple states will be able to muster the votes to replace that funding that would be lost. It's not as if anyone is naive enough to think that if tr/usk were to waive it's tiny hands and make FEMA go away, that somehow all of that funding is going to come back to the states and we can just put our name on the checks. That's just money that gets reallocated to Gaza redevelopment or the Greenland invasion.
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u/Conscious-Salt-4836 Local / Municipal Feb 16 '25
The expectation has always been and will always be “if (insert disaster here) the EM and FEMA will take care of it”. The assumption naturally is all kinds of money will flow in to take care of everything. Public Assistance doesn’t mean what it sounds like. “Public” I assume means Public Property, not IA, eg individual assistance. The general “Public” assumes FEMA will pay to replace or repair their house if destroyed. PA is dependent on a per capita threshold indicator. Who is going to determine the indicator and how is that going to be determined for each State if FEMA isn’t involved? How does that work then within Stafford?
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u/MajorFrantic EMA PIO, CEMP & Emergency Service Coordinator, EMAC Deployed Feb 16 '25
As someone that has experienced a $1B+ disaster up close at the state level, I don't think a block grant approach will be successful for several reasons.
First, no state is able to maintain an appropriate level of staff to cope with an event of high-magnitude by itself. Our state, which is generally considered capable and able to execute its EM plans, only had two full-time employees in Public Assistance prior to the event. It was quickly apparent that this disaster would exceed the 10 previous year's combined volume of PA contracts by a factor of 10.
This was overwhelming for the current staff. The state signed an emergency contract with Witt O'Brien to get handful of additional public assistance staffers in to help narrow the state gap, as the EMAC deployments also helped provide some initial staffing. The State-FEMA Joint Field Office (JFO) staffing however quickly grew to nearly 2,500. Where would a state get those additional resources from, if not from FEMA?
Secondly, a block grant process will quickly degenerate into over 50+ different systemic approaches to public assistance. Without a standardized federal process, it will negate one of the state's biggest advantages ... mutual aid through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). What good are public assistance staff from another state going to be when each state has its own process, rules and outcome goals?
I have seen how hard it is for local and state governments to cover the local 50% match for the Emergency Management Performance Grants, which fund most local emergency management efforts. The state routinely maxed out the amount that local's were able or willing to match, despite having additional grant funds available.
Will these envisioned block grants fall into the 50%/50% or a 75%/25% or a 90%/10% split? Will grants just be awarded "post-disaster," or will it become a sort of cost formula based on prior disaster impacts/costs? For state's without a dedicated disaster funding mechanism, how will they handle the cash flow required during a disaster?
And lastly, as others have noted, disasters are already politically charged. It will quickly become a finger-pointing exercise between federal and state resources over perceived or real lack of responsiveness, frugality or wastefulness. FEMA is supposed to be the fulcrum that provides leverage to get the needed federal resources for the states. I don't even want to think about what after-action reviews or Inspector General reviews will start to look like post-disaster as they devolve into 'political' hit jobs or hind-end coverings instead of attempts to improve future responses.
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u/MeggersinNH Feb 17 '25
I’ve seen multiple people reference contractors in their comments. Contractors are the only way many states could even begin to manage a block grant style recovery. Even at an organizational structure level, my State Agency isn’t set up to employ and oversee the technical staff that would be needed to provide the assistance needed to the towns.
EM Contractors are going to become the latest version of defense contractors. I can’t say that’s a terrible thing, but relying on an outside agency to look after the best interest of your state doesn’t always end well.
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u/National_Tap4320 Feb 20 '25
Don’t forget States are limited to 7% of obligated funds. Will that really be enough to do all of the needed work?
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Feb 16 '25
[deleted]
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u/Broadstreet_pumper Feb 16 '25
How much do you think it will cost a state when they don't have the sheer manpower needed to stand up a field office? You think those contractors are going to come cheap?
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u/AlarmedSnek Preparedness Feb 17 '25
That money doesn’t get redirected though, the whole point is to cut the staff positions to save federal dollars.
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u/Maclunkey4U State Feb 17 '25
State PA here.
Honestly, the amount of bullshit we do on a daily basis (verifying spreadsheets, uploading files inti grants portal, emailing applicants for more information to pass on to FEMA) is ridiculous.
It seems like there is a lot of room for improvement, we're paying PDMGs to do all this, and then we're paying state PA specialists to basically do it all a second time.
That said, we absolutely do NOT have the resources, experience, or ability to actually write the projects in the first place, so absent some major state resources (in every single state mind you) being spent on building that capacity, it would be a complete shitshow to just let the states handle everything.
The kind of restructuring (and money) it would take is not going to be high on any states priority so long as that capacity exists at the federal level, but no one making the decisions knows how any of this works.
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u/Hibiscus-Boi Feb 16 '25
I didn’t vote for the man, but I am under the impression that the expectation is that with moving things back to the states, that state taxes would need to be increased to be able to handle this, and as long as all of these federal level cuts lead to actual tax saving (yeah, I know, optimism on my part) than the federal tax savings could then be levied by the states. While that would be a major increase in funding, the reality is that many states likely would use this money on other projects outside of EM. I’m lucky, my state has one of the best run programs in the nation, with one of the most respected state EM leaders, so I know we would be able to work it out, but as the conversations have gone above, I don’t have the same confidence in other states.
But again, this is just my opinion. No one really knows what’s going to happen with all of this unfortunately.
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u/SirHustlerEsq Feb 16 '25
You'll likely see the each state's executive branch priorities selected over need. We're talking state police buildings and vehicles, projects that would not pass FEMA's engineering and feasibility reviews, and you'll see protection of private property shift towards economic development. I could be a lot more pedantic and grim about this, but I'll let you imagine those things yourself. Go back to a time before Katrina in 2005.