Columbia Basin Media
"We put the Middle Columbia River Basin into words."


January 29, 2004

By F. Ellsworth Lockwood
Columbia Basin Media
FEMAonBudgetCycle Thursday, January 29, 2004

FEMA defends budget decisions

County woes stem from laws, federal policies, says PAO


[Jesse Seigal is the FEMA Public Affairs Officer assigned the responsibility for handling Umatilla CSEPP. The following are excerpts from Seigal's reaction to a draft of our January 19, 2004, News brief, "Top demil official fields visits Hermiston," and the associated article, "Director of Chemical Materials Agency visits Hermiston."]

Hermiston, OR -- From a FEMA perspective, many of the statements (of a county commissioner cited by Columbia Basin Media) about the federal budget process are misleading at best, and illustrate a general lack of understanding. We have attempted to clear some of that confusion up in the following response.

I have quoted statements from your article below to indicate what about the article we think is inaccurate or misleading, then have included some comments after each quote.

Article: "The budget for CSEPP suffers a two year lag, and pre-validated requests are identified as unfunded."

Response: Not just CSEPP, but every element of federal government begins estimating annual budgets as many as eight years in advance. Three years out from the funding year, Congress is already working on appropriations for projected budgets. Two years out, funding for government agencies, grant programs, etc., is essentially locked in and programs such as CSEPP can do little to affect the outcome. The term "life-cycle cost estimate," or LCCE is what this is all about. This is embedded in the federal budget process; it wasn't developed by CSEPP. The burden for timely submission in this process is therefore placed squarely on grant requester and depends upon their ability to accurately forecast future requirements.

Article: "Repeated requests to Federal Emergency Management Agency have failed to produce the results that the county is looking for."

Response: The federal budgeting cycle isn't going to change because a program grantee doesn't agree with the lawful process used government-wide. That said - examples of FEMA failing to fund validated requirements, whether within the LCCE or beyond, are extremely rare.

Article: "CSEPP financial planning is made difficult because when each year's budget cycle ends, it is months before government money begins to flow again. Response: This is true across the federal government, for all agencies all programs, and all grantees. There is seldom a requirement for CSEPP money for a given Fiscal Year to be spent exclusively in that year. Grantees have a period of performance (generally two years) and when an annual grant arrives in January or February or even March as has sometimes been the case, that money for operations and maintenance should last until the next appropriation arrives the following January, February, or March. This cycle will undoubtedly repeat itself in virtually every year. Knowing that, it should be possible to structure projects and recurring expenses such that this does not result in any significant disruption. Once again, planning is important.

Article: "Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's} budget cycle puts budget submissions two years behind the federal budget cycle and causes items to be categorized as either "late" or "unfunded." The letter called the budget cycle a "broken system" which had not been fixed even after repeated requests for change."

Response: Again, this is the federal budgeting cycle, not FEMA's. FEMA operates within the system used by all federal government, and within the laws established for distributing federal grants.

Article: "Illustrating the funding lags, Grace noted that the 2004 Defense Authorization Act was signed in October of 2003, but it was well into January before Oregon finally received its $5.6 million share. 'This delay seriously affects our ability to continue CSEPP work during the first quarter,' the letter said."

Response: This past October, $1.5 million was provided to Oregon jurisdictions to insure critical functions were not impacted. Award of the remainder was hindered by the fact that Oregon State adopted a position of refusing to prioritize its budget while holding out for total funding. It should be pointed out that many departments of the federal government still do not have an approved 2004 budget. Once again, this dynamic exists across the federal government, and occurs every year. Money received for operations and maintenance from the previous year should be programmed to take this annual delay into account.

Article: "Life Cycle Cost Estimates (LCCE) were made years before anyone could possibly provide a best 'educated guess' at what public safety requirements would dictate." Yet, based on those estimates, FEMA notified the county that budget requirements received since 2001 must therefore be considered "unfunded."

Response: The law requires granting agencies to validate cost benefits of projects that grant applicants make prior to awarding funds. When grantees cannot project costs, new requests, by the very nature of the process, fall into the unfunded category; Life Cycle Cost Estimates (LCCE) are not unique to CSEPP - they are a fact of life in federal government. There are a number of states within the CSEPP program that have conquered the challenges of the LCCE process and experience little uncertainty or delay in receiving their funding.

Article: "It is increasingly difficult to provide for the safety of our citizens and impossible to accommodate the Department of Defense budgeting cycle, while handicapped with FEMA's submission schedule." This is even more so as the commencement of incineration approaches, the letter says. (Incineration is expected to begin this year, perhaps this summer.}

Response: It can easily be argued that an uncommon level of response capability has already been bought and paid for in the Umatilla community. Sirens, indoor tone-alert radios, highway message reader boards, highway advisory radio, school over-pressurization systems, multiple radio systems, computer aided dispatch, the new "WiFi" incident response system, decontamination equipment, an extensive training program, an aggressive media campaign and public outreach program, full-time chemical hazard analysts at the Umatilla Chemical Depot, sophisticated computer modeling capabilities at the 20+ full time employees who plan, manage and promote CSEPP in the community are just some of things that are paid for in full or in part by CSEPP. The true test of providing for citizens' safety will lie in the ability to effectively coordinate and use all these wonderful tools in the immediacy of a chemical incident response. In preparations for submission of the 2005 award application, FEMA hopes to work with the community to move forward in realistic planning to maximize the potential effectiveness of the response.

Article: "Assist us in fundamental reform" that would eliminate the two year budget time lag, synchronize emergency preparedness with the federal system, and guarantee that FEMA would submit program needs in time to be included in the President's budget."

Response: While fundamental reform of the federal budgetary process is a challenge that may exceed our charter, FEMA does submit known requirements in time to be included in the President's budget. The problem is that, " in time to be included in the President's budget" means that the requirement must be identified at least two years in advance. Working within that constraint, we have still managed to produce impressive results for the community. This year's budget is a prime example. Beginning with a figure of $5.66 million, as was incorporated in the President's budget based upon the 2001 estimate, the request submitted by Oregon in August of 2003 totaled $13 million. Much was made of the significant difference as if FEMA was somehow responsible for it. Six months later, full funding has been obtained. As this year's debate comes to a close, we look ahead to next year. Money is not always the answer and improvements in roads and signals, the addition of remote monitoring devices and high tech enhancements will not be a panacea for assuring preparedness.

Evacuation in and of itself is not the solution to protecting the public in every scenario. FEMA supports a balanced shelter-in-place and evacuation methodology where it can be quantitatively proven to reduce public risk. FEMA funded phase II of the Oregon Infrastructure Evacuation Project only after having Innovative Emergency Management, Inc., one of the nation's leaders in risk assessment, study the question of whether evacuation, without consideration of current proposed infrastructure improvements, can potentially reduce public risk in Oregon sectors. IEM will continue to study under FEMA contract, and with full participation by the Oregon CSEPP community, where the greatest gains in public preparedness can be realized. Just because a new idea is expensive, it doesn't necessarily equate to "best" or "most effective." What FEMA proposes to do over the next several months is to assist the community in evaluating various alternative strategies, including evacuation, to find the best applications for reduction of risk in this community. If the results of that assessment required solutions that exceed available (LCCE) dollars, we'll do what we always do and work with our Army partners to find funding. If, on the other hand, we identify strategies that achieve the same or better results for less money, we would expect every good citizen to applaud the effort.

FEMA has an office in Hermiston, Oregon, at 80515 Hwy 395 North, in the Trail's End Plaza. They can be contacted as follows:

Jess Seigal, FEMA Region X, Office phone: (541) 567-3652, Fax: (541) 564-7524, e-mail: jesse.seigal@dhs.gov

Note from Columbia Basin Media's Editor: I stand by the article as printed on CBM's web page, http://columbiabasinmedia.com, and I disagree with FEMA's characterization of the report as "inaccurate or misleading." On the other hand, I acknowledge that FEMA's budget cycle and Morrow County's difficulties are subject to the decisions of Congress and the federal budgeting process.