For those of you outside the state of Washington, you might not give a rip about what the audit says, but there might be a few tidbits there that you can use in your agency or region of the world.
First of all, it is good to see the types of things that the auditors looked at. It might be a good guide for looking at your own program — before an auditor shows up. Then there is some good data and discussion on where emergency management should be located within an organization/government with some details on others in the nation. It is a sampling, and not a comprehensive look at this issue. Numbers of staff area also shared.
The authorities piece is also good to look at. How do your "authorities" match-up with good governance?
In the nine years since I left the organization, there have been three appointed OEM directors and one acting for one year. This type of leadership turmoil is never good for an organization. I personally think the audit findings have much to do with the disruption in leadership and lack of continuity for the program.
Read the portion on the need for Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) activations. People processes and technology get stale very quickly without constant training and exercises. I was accused of "activating at the drop of the hat." But, I found that it kept our internal staff sharp, and every time we activated we found our contact list out of date or some piece of the technology suite not working properly, or people not knowing how to use it. These facilities are getting ever more complex and they need regular use to keep staff, procedures and equipment operational.
Lastly (and, I have not read the entire document yet), the assignment of permanent staff positions like operations, training and finance to grant funded positions (Term Limited Temporary — TLT — in King County terms) is likely not a good idea. Grant funded positions need to be those associated with specific grant deliverables versus general emergency management duties. it looks like they may get a win out this though since it appears there could be King County Council support to make these permanent positions. Then those dollars could be put to specific grant, and hopefully, regional support purposes.
The current OEM Director Walt Hubbard stated earlier this week that all the recommendations from the audit have been accepted by the King County Executive and he stated that he wants to be very transparent about the findings and how they are working to fix these internal King County issues to better support the region. Yea, Walt!
