State-Managed Disasters: Another Perspective which has been extensively involved in StateLed Public Assistance since the beginning. The information is in an interviewwith North Dakota’s Homeland Security Director, Cody Schulz, conducted by Tidal Basin’s Regional Vice President, David Andrews. The interview addresses both the benefits and challenges of the State-Led PA Program, and howNorth Dakota has tailored its operations tomeet those challenges. Once again, it is valuable insight for officials of other states that are considering participation in the Program. IN THIS ISSUE SPECIAL EDITION Disaster Preparedness and Recovery Consulting Although FEMA rolled out its comprehensive State-Led Public Assistance Guide in February 2019—and the concept of states leading Public Assistance operations for smaller disasters itself dates back to 2001 when FEMA began allowing the practice—many states remain hesitant to engage in such operations. The experiences of one, Arizona, are highlighted in Disaster Recovery Today issue #8001. This issue builds on that by providing the perspective of another state, North Dakota, FEMA/David Valdez
2 D I SAS T E R R ECOVE RY TODAY.COM Cody Schulz Homeland Security Director State of North Dakota Cody was appointed North Dakota’s Homeland Security Division Director and State Homeland Security Advisor in March 2018. He had previously served as the department’s Business Manager and Disaster Recovery and Mitigation Chief. He has led financial and programmatic recovery operations during 14 presidentially declared major disasters and numerous state-declared emergencies. A native of New Salem, North Dakota, he was elected to the Morton County Commission in 2012 and re-elected four years later. He served as chairman of the commission in 2016 and 2017, during the historic Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protest. He holds an M.B.A. from the University of North Dakota, as well as bachelor’s and associate’s degrees in business administration from Dickinson State University and the University of North Dakota, respectively. David Andrews Regional Vice President Tidal Basin Prior to being named Regional Vice President in 2020, David had served as Tidal Basin’s Vice President of Business Development since 2017. He joined the firm in 2014 as Deputy Director for State and Local Programs. His move to the private sector followed nearly 20 years during which he distinguished himself as a leader in the public sector of the emergency management and disaster recovery field. Among the positions he held was Emergency ProgramManager for the State of Alaska’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management —where he oversaw the development and implementation of planned recovery programs, managed and monitored program budgets to ensure full compliance with federal program requirements, and was a key advisor to the Division’s senior leadership on strategic planning for disaster recovery programs. He served on behalf of the governor as the senior state official to coordinate assistance during declared disasters. His responsibilities with Tidal Basin include overseeing the formation of business partnerships and leading the planning and execution of the company’s marketing strategies.
T IDALBAS INGROUP.COM 3 through an AfterAction Report (AAR) process, an after-action review with a subsequent report on sampling of disasters throughout the states. I think they have to be cognizant that they choose a diverse group of states, different sizes of disasters and different types of disasters — whether it’s hurricane, overland flooding, tornados and others, just to get a feel, a real broad range of perspectives on how the implementation is working at the state level. That would be useful for FEMA to do. Andrews: As the current Vice Chair of the National Emergency Management Association’s (NEMA) Legislative Committee, what are your thoughts on the State-Led Guide, and how it was developed and rolled out? Schulz: Both the process and the guide are really good tools, but more important I think even than the outcome or the guide itself is the process that was used when the concept of the State-Led Public Assistance process was being put together. I was really impressed. Nancy Dragani from Region VIII led that effort and we pulled in a group of stakeholders — including directors from states that had experience with state-led and from those that didn’t — to get a broad overview and perspective. I really liked both the process and the outcome. I think it helps that it formalizes some of these issues, but what’s so important with these guides and processes always is that while there is a formalized structure, there is enough latitude or subjectivity to allow states to operate slightly differently within that construct. So overall, a very good product and tool. Andrews: You had mentioned that states were involved from the onset in developing the State-Led Public Assistance Guide. Now that it is finalized, what do you think the next step should be for reviewing its effectiveness — and are there any modifications you would like to see made? Schulz: I think it’s important that FEMA DR 4444 (North Dakota Flooding) goes State-Led Public Assistance Guide February 2019 “… more important I think even than the outcome or the guide itself is the process that was used when the concept of the State-Led Public Assistance process was being put together. I was really impressed.”
4 D I SAS T E R R ECOVE RY TODAY.COM Also, I know that NEMA, through the response and recovery committee and the legislative committee, covered some of the issues and for lack of a better term“shortcomings” of the new stateled process — including how the New Delivery Model fits into that — at NEMA’s annual forum in Idaho in October 2019. NEMA looks to work with FEMA to seek solutions to these challenges to create elevated outcomes and continue an open dialogue with FEMA partners to help get to solutions to the complexities that many states are encountering. Those two things are important: make sure they’re getting feedback from the states and don’t be afraid to make changes. Sometimes FEMA and the federal government can dig their heels in on certain things and I think we must recognize that some flexibility and willingness to fix problems is a good thing. Andrews: From your perspective, what are some of the challenges states might experience with the State-Led Public Assistance Guide and implementing it on future disasters? And did you experience some of these challenges when you initiated the State-Led Public Assistance Program in North Dakota? Schulz: Three challenges from a stateled perspective that come to mind are staffing, training and sustaining. We ran into those problems, certainly. I’ll call them “challenges” in North Dakota.
T IDALBAS INGROUP.COM 5 One of the silver linings of having a disaster virtually every year from 1993 to 2015 is that you have a battle rhythm that’s built. Some of that training happens organically because you’re bringing your reservists in every single year to actually execute — so less training in the interim is required. A lot of the mitigation measures that we’ve put in place over the last two decades are really starting to lessen both the quantity and impact that we’re seeing from disasters. That’s a great thing, but subsequently we’re having fewer disaster declarations, so those three things I mentioned will continue to be both challenges and opportunities. However, training, staffing and sustaining capabilities are the biggest challenges. Andrews: Since North Dakota has conducted each disaster as state-managed from the onset of its implementation back in 2001, what are some of the benefits you have seen on the state, local and federal levels? Schulz: By far the biggest benefit has been the quality of customer service that we can provide to our applicants, our constituents. Having local hires doing site inspections and writing project worksheets, they understand the geography, the geology, the culture, so they can do things at a higher level of quality and frankly, more efficiently. The other thing that we see as a huge benefit is the relationships. This works both from local to federal or from local to state, and from state to federal. By doing these things and having a shared understanding, trust is built, as are strong relationships. Andrews: As a state that has conducted state-managed disasters even before the State-Led Public Assistance Guide was released, how did North Dakota prepare for and manage taking on the additional roles and responsibilities that came with state-led? Do you see any changes being made in how you implement state-led disasters now that this guide has been released, or if not, why? Schulz: So, how did we prepare for managing these things in the past? I think it’s very important to create subject matter experts within your regular staff. You’re never able to fully staff with the quantity of employees needed to execute during a disaster. So you have to use some “By far the biggest benefit has been the quality of customer service that we can provide to our applicants, our constituents.”
6 D I SAS T E R R ECOVE RY TODAY.COM level of reservists or mutual aid or EMAC (Emergency Management Assistance Compact) to supplement your staffing. But you have to make sure that you have leaders and subject matter experts trained, built and ready within your staff. I think that’s incredibly important. In terms of any changes in how we’re to implement now with this new guidance — virtually none. I’ll say we were pretty successful in the process of writing this guidance. We were very intimately involved, so a lot of the ways that we were operating in the past are what’s been written into the guide. And since we have some of this authorship, it will not significantly change how we operate. In terms of what we’ll do now that this guide and process have been released — and maybe you’re going to touch on this in one of your next questions —we have to continue to advocate for more state management, not so much for the dollars, but for flexibility and the ability to roll those dollars over from one disaster to the next. I think that’s going to be incredibly important for states: to be able to sustain capabilities between disaster declarations. Andrews: The State-Led Public Assistance Guide allows recipients to choose their level of involvement with three key functions: customer service, site inspections, and scoping and costing — and there are “shared” and“plus” levels in each category. What level of involvement do you think most states will choose, and why or why not? Schulz: That’s a tough question to answer. It’s going to be as diverse as the states’ operations and capabilities are right now. I think you’re going to see a range from top to bottom of what states will do. The nice thing about this model is that it’s flexible, it’s scalable. There’s really no template of what a state should or shouldn’t do. “There’s probably going to be some incrementalism for states that have not been doing state-managed up to this point. They may get their feet wet with one of the three main areas in their first disaster and continue to build capacity.” It depends both on the state and its capabilities, as well as the nature, size and scope of a particular disaster. One state might assume all of these functions in a medium-sized disaster; however, if the following year they have a catastrophic disaster, they’re going to have to hand some of those things off to the feds just because the capacity isn’t there. So I think it’s going to run the gamut in what states choose. North Dakota will continue to do all three. We believe we’ve got the capacity to do that in virtually any
T IDALBAS INGROUP.COM 7 size or type of disaster, so we’ll continue to make sure that we’re trained and our reservists are ready to execute. Andrews: Given the budget and other constraints many states face, are there times when the state-led option is not appropriate? Schulz: Certainly. There’s probably going to be some incrementalism for states that have not been doing state-managed up to this point. They may get their feet wet with one of the three main areas in their first disaster and continue to build capacity. There are constraints in terms of budget and what you can keep trained from a reservist level, for example. There are going to be times, based on the size, scope and type of disaster where state-led is not appropriate for some states. Andrews: Since North Dakota has managed each disaster since the early 2000s — from your typical $30 million to $35 million events and over-$150 million disasters —does this new guidance change how you will implement state-led
8 D I SAS T E R R ECOVE RY TODAY.COM disasters in the future? And why or why not? Schulz: Philosophically, it won’t change anything. The changes are going to be around the edges, a little bit in implementation, less about state-led than about FEMA’s new Public Assistance Delivery Model. Any of the tweaks or changes that we’re going to have to make will be more a result of the New Delivery Model than anything else. One of the things we’re going to have to be cognizant of and maybe make some changes or tweaks to is our staffing and reservist model — how and when we do trainings, and how we create and maintain sustainability with our reservists from a training perspective. Andrews: FEMA touts that one of the many benefits to the State-Led Public Assistance option is that it helps build recipients’ internal capacity and capability to respond to and recover from disasters of all sizes, thus enhancing the readiness of the Recipient and Subrecipient for catastrophic events. What are your FEMA/David Valdez
T IDALBAS INGROUP.COM 9 thoughts on this and how can it best be accomplished? Schulz: I think the benefit FEMA touts is true. I believe it does help build capacity and the second- and third-order effects are that it will free up FEMA to focus more narrowly on the catastrophic events. Some of the challenges on how we accomplish this obviously for the states are back to those three things I mentioned earlier — training, staffing and sustaining with reservists — because there is not funding to create a permanent staffing level capacity. We’re going to have to do these things creatively, whether it’s with reservists, which we primarily rely on, or if it’s through mutual aid with other states through EMAC. We northern states also have NEMAC, the Northern Emergency Management Assistance Compact. We have to continue to be creative to overcome the challenges. Probably the biggest one is funding — and again, it’s less about the amount of money than it is about the flexibility of how we can use it. With the new states now being able to retain 7 percent of a disaster’s total funding for the state portion of management costs, for the most part it’s still going to be break-even. With smaller disasters, however, it’s going to be tough. In larger disasters you create some economies of scale where 7 percent is going to cover it. We need to continue to advocate for allowing a rollover of that money so it’s not specific to just a particular disaster, so you can build program sustainability beyond just a single disaster declaration. Andrews: A follow up on that: with the passage of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018 and the changes to management costs now being set at the 7 percent figure, do you see this playing a role in how a state decides to participate in the state-led option, and why? Are there other factors states should consider to alleviate these concerns? Schulz: I touched a little bit on that in my previous answer, but it will play a role in how a state decides to participate and potentially which one or how many of the three key functions a state takes on. It might seem counterintuitive, but in looking at it, because of the economies of scale, it’s probably going to be on those smaller disasters. What I envision is states are probably going to look at that 80 percent on the bell curve in the middle, those medium-size disasters that they engage in fully. “Having local hires doing site inspections and writing project worksheets, they understand the geography, the geology, the culture, so they can do things at a higher level of quality and frankly, more efficiently.”
10 D I SAS T E R R ECOVE RY TODAY.COM Where it’s going to be very tough on the left side of that bell curve is with the smaller disasters, where the economies of scale are such that 7 percent is not going to cover them because there are fixed costs in scaling up for disaster recovery. And then on the right side of that bell curve, those catastrophic events in which there just isn’t enough trained staffing within a state and even potentially with EMAC, those are going to be difficult for states. I think there’s an 80 percent solution in the middle. It’s going be those 10 percent on each side that are going to be challenges. Andrews: You mentioned that North Dakota overcomes the capacity issue by implementing a reservist program and utilizing EMAC resources. What are some of the challenges with those programs? Schulz: With the reservists, it’s finding the balance of how much funding we target for this in non-disaster times from a training perspective. And how do we keep our reservists engaged between disasters. That’s a challenge. A challenge with EMAC is primarily timing and funding. You generally need to get folks in very quickly when you’re actually doing an EMAC request. And then there are the expenses you’re going to have to pay them to travel here, lodge them and get them out and trained on some of those things I talked about, i.e., the geography, geology and other local characteristics. Those are the challenges I see in these areas. Andrews: If you were to give some advice to other states considering participating in the State-Led Public Assistance options, what words of wisdomwould you give them? Schulz: First of all, I’d say incrementalism is not the enemy here. If you’re not comfortable, don’t take everything on at once, take on one or two of the key areas. The other thing you can do is take on all three areas but just do it in a portion of the state and allow FEMA to cover the others. So start small. “We have to continue to be creative to overcome the challenges. Probably the biggest one is funding — and again, it’s less about the amount of money than it is about the flexibility of how we can use it.”
T IDALBAS INGROUP.COM 11 As far as how you approach this philosophically, my advice to the states is remember: it’s all about the people we serve. Approach this with a customer service model in mind. It’s all about outcomes — and processes play into outcomes. That would be my advice. Andrews: Is there anything you’d like to add? Or is there a topic we didn’t cover related to State-Led Public Assistance that you would like to address? “… incrementalism is not the enemy here. If you’re not comfortable, don’t take everything on at once, take on one or two of the key areas.”
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