IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

National Preparedness Grant Program (NPGP) Foibles

I still think block grants is the right way to go--if done right!

More information is coming out (but not enough) on the President's 2013 budget proposal to put a National Preparedness Grant Program (NPGP) in place that uses a block grant strategy to combine separate grant streams into a single grant that goes to states that will administer the funds.  To see what a variety of associations and their representatives have to say about the new grant proposal see Subcommittee Hearing: Ensuring the Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Transparency of Homeland Security Grants (Part II): Stakeholder Perspectives  

 

I have my own thoughts on the new NPGP proposal.  My comments are below: 

 

The Homeland Security grant process is about to take a radical turn in the ten year journey of these grants.  The intent is to establish a National Preparedness Grant Program (NPGP).  One of the key features of this new program is the consolidation of grants and grant administration under the authority of the 50 State Administrative Agencies (SAA).  These positions have existed for some time already and are functioning for a number of Federal grants.  However, the new proposal before Congress will consolidate 16 grant funding streams under the states.

 

Perhaps my biggest disappointment is that it appears that DHS and FEMA did not coordinate the new process with external partners who are going to be impacted by these changes.  Repeated testimony by a variety of disciplinary representatives keep calling attention to this.  The other aspect is that the NPGP is “fuzzy” at best with few details on how it will all work.  This uncertainty makes people and organizations nervous and there isn’t a lot of trust to start with.

 

One of the major features of the new grants is that the period of performance will be limited to two years.  In reality then it means that you will not be able to do much other than buy more equipment, which many organizations have done in the past.  It also means that for doing planning, especially regional planning that takes more time, the period of performance will preclude completing plans.  For Ports that have used grants to improve the physical security infrastructure there will not be time to do large scale physical improvements that require construction.  The permitting and environmental processes alone eat up many months of time and there will not be adequate time available to complete projects.  You have to remember that it can be up to six months from the time that the grant award is made before the funding has been released.  There are promises to speed up the process—but, those are promises at this point.

 

I find it extremely unfortunate that the Regional Catastrophic Planning Grants has been eliminated as a grant stream.  Regional planning is not going to be funded by individual jurisdictions and agencies.  While there is a “regional focus” to the Federal proposal, in their case they are thinking multiple states within FEMA regions.  My definition of a region is one that shares a common population and resources.  In most cases these are not multi-state regions, but instead are metropolitan areas that cross city and county boundaries—and sometime states.  It is the planning process that binds people and organizations together, creating relationships that can endure when disaster strikes.

 

There is also a new requirement for states to establish a Threat Hazard Identification Risk Assessment (THIRA) for their states.  These are to be completed in a few short months and are to guide the allocation of 2013 grant funding within states.  The guidance for preparing a THIRA was late in being distributed to states and therefore the state-wide coordination is expected to be limited.  Of concern to local emergency management agencies is that the state THIRA will dictate the priorities with no respect for any specific local THIRA based assessments that may have a hazard/risk that is huge for a single jurisdiction, but not that significant for the state overall.  For example, the Mt. Rainier volcano is a really big issue for Thurston and Pierce Counties here in Washington State an of lesser concern for most of the other jurisdictions in the state.

 

In reading testimony about the grant process I find that overall there is a significant distrust of the states ability to allocate the funds and not favor one discipline or region over another.  I expect that the distrust comes from a history of how local jurisdictions have been treated in the past in the distribution of funding. 

 

Most knowledgeable people I know have been surprised that the grant funding has lasted as long as it has, given there has not been a significant terrorist attack following in the footsteps of 9/11.  So, it is reasonable that funding will decrease.  It is the manner in which the funds are being allocated and the lack of coordination that is most troubling to stakeholders with skin in the game.

 

I’m fully supportive of the “Block Grant” approach to funding Preparedness, Prevention, Mitigation, Response and Recovery.  Somewhere in there more attention should be paid to mitigation—it is the only thing that is going to reduce the impacts of future disasters.  Like most new ideas and concepts.  It is the execution that will make all the difference and people are very concerned with what they have seen (or not seen) to date.