FEMA and the Blowfish Budget
Just the other day, a really interesting article about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) appeared in my local newspaper, the Asbury Park Press. It spoke about a number of problems that had been identified during a recent review. What really caught my eye was the description of the manner in which the FEMA budget is funded. The Associated Press (AP) article spoke of an organization whose funds rise and fall with far less regularity than the tides of the ocean.
The AP article portrayed an agency regularly starved for funds to cover their on-going, day-to-day operations. The article mentioned that this funding shortfall stymied the agency’s ability to conducting strategic planning for future operations.
The article also made strong reference to the fact that any time there is a major emergency, FEMA has to go, hat in hand, to our Congress for more money. Their budget is then blown up to the level needed to cover the sudden emergency operation. After the crisis passes, the budget then drops back to its normal penurious pittance.
What really bugged me about this article is the fact that it covered things that we in the fire and emergency service world have known for years. These are the things that political operatives and legislators have ignored more times over the years than then they have ignored the need for a balanced budget. Well, maybe not that many times.
I found it interesting to note that the article stated that there are neither sufficient people nor funding for FEMA to properly address future planningand operational issues on an ongoing basis. Whether it is short-term medium-term or long-term planning, FEMA, does not seem to have the necessary bucks or the bodies to get the job done.
The article made reference to the continual use of college students, consulting firms and interns to work on projects that the staff is not capable of handling. Don’t get me started about the plethora of consultants sucking down contracts for jobs that once were the province of real government employees. I might mention the concept of low-bid nonsense that goes on in government.
My friends please do not take this asa slam of the folks at FEMA. There are some real great people there. Sadly, there just aren’t enough of them; and those that are there have been worn to a nub by the competing tasks given to them.
Here is where I want to bring in the blowfish analogy. My experience as a fisherman is quite limited indeed. However I did get to see an odd-looking little creature known as the blowfish during my hunt for the elusive fluke and flounder off of the New Jersey coastline. Let me tell you gang it is a really ugly little fish that appears to have only one major talent.
When faced with a dangerous situation, this ugly little fish is capable of expanding many times its regular size. This is its defense mechanism. It grows to such as size that it can no longer fit within the mouths of its much larger predators. I guess it works, although I have never had the opportunity to speak to a shark about this.
Now let me lay this out for you in an orderly manner. The blowfish is not a big creature, but during times of peril it grows disproportionately large as a type of defense mechanism. On the other hand FEMA is really small element within the federal bureaucracy. During normal times, when it could be getting ready for emergencies, it cannot, because it doesn’t have enough money. However, during times of danger, the FEMA budget grows much bigger to meet the problems that it faces. So we have the phenomenon of Blowfish Budgeting to meet civil emergencies.
Given this asinine way of running the FEMA railroad, is it any wonder that FEMA screwed the pooch during Hurricane Katrina? There was no other possible outcome. As a student of the concept of strategic planning and organizational management, I do not think that FEMA has a solid grasp on the reality of how to plan for the future. But then again, not many agencies in government have spent this time to learn how to plan.
The absence of FEMA planning and operations money has created a vacuum wherein local, state, and federal agencies begin to operate in independent ways. Cooperation and coordination are lacking and no one bothers to create a hand-in-glove, interactive plan for those major disasters we know lie just around the corner. The result was observed in New Orleans when the city and state had such a paralyzing case of rectal-cranial inversion that not happened. Nothing but finger-pointing that is.
One of the major negative responses which has arisen from the rubble of the Katrina disaster has been the view that the American military should become the lead agency in disaster response. What a lousy idea. It is not bad enough that our military has experienced some major cuts over the past 14 years? Is it not bad enough that they have been saddled with a two-front war and a number of half-baked peace-keeping missions? Now they want the military to become first responders. What a crappy idea.
Enlistments are down and mission demands are up. This reminds me of the period during the Vietnam War when we had to keep sending the same experienced people back time and again, due to staffing shortages. What a perfect time to give our stretched-to-the-breaking-point military yet another mission. Let me tell you that I cast a giant NOvote for using our military as a part of our normal disaster response operations.
If someone had been able to foresee a phased response plan that brought everyone together, maybe things would have been a better during the early phases of the Katrina response. You know a bottom up, top down phased response plan for emergency operations. Oh, wait a minute we have that don’t we? We do have a national response plan.
The problem as I see it is that only a very few people have taken it seriously. Only a few people had a hand in crafting it. Like far too many plans, it seems to lack a tie-in to reality. Now that,my friends is just my opinion. I am but one guy among many who responds to emergencies on a daily basis in a small corner of one township in one little part of our great nation. Maybe my view of the world is skewed. Maybe I could be wrong.
Or maybe it could be that my 41 years of fire and emergency service experience have equipped me with a built-in BS Detector. Based upon all of my studies in the world of strategic planning, one point has become abundantly clear. All levels of an organization, regardless of the size of that operation, need to be involved in planning. A plan cannot be created by an outside entity and then imposed upon people just because it is convenient to do it that way. I could not even tell you how many times I have seen that one during my career.
So it is in the world of emergency planning. Far too many of the plans created by emergency management specialists for use by us poor, dumb, unwashed fire people just do not cut it. Let me offer the example of a county whose plan for storm evacuation involved moving people across state lines to a safe haven. It sounds good, until you begin to explore whether people have talked with one another.
There was no communication with the place to which the evacuees were to be directed during their evacuation. No one bothered to tell the place where people were going to be asked to head, that they should plan for about 20,000 extra people at the supper table in the event of a storm or other emergency.
Think about it. Wouldn’t you suppose that someone would pick up the phone and ask if the area was willing,or even able, to serve as an evacuation host? This is but one county out of the thousands which exist in our great nation. How many more similar stories exist across our nation?
While I may only be one guy, I still think that I havethe right as a citizen of the realm to offer a few words of advice to the powers what am. Let me now share a few thoughts on what might be done to help FEMA climb out of the public’s doghouse.
First off, I would urge our government to yank FEMA out of the Department of Homeland Security and return it to the cabinet level status it enjoyed under the Clinton Administration. I have seen FEMA directors come and go through the last couple of decades. I am pleased to see that one of our own has been placed in command.
I am a Republican, but I am sick and tired of my party cutting the guts out of anything to do with fire programs. Think about it though. When push came to shove, whodid our government call for?Why a fireman of course. Only after all of the “experts” panicked and found themselves and their grand schemes wanting did the call go out to a member of our world.
We need to insure that Dave Paulison is afforded the same strong platform that James Lee Witt enjoyed as a cabinet-level appointee when he labored in the FEMA vineyards for President Clinton. We took great pains over the years to make sure that Mr. Witt came to understand who and what the fire service is, and what it can do.
Let us assume that our government wises up and returns FEMA to cabinet-level status. Let us also assume that David Paulison is given permanent status as the FEMA Director. What then will he face when budget time rolls around. He will face the Blowfish Budget I mentioned earlier in this article.
How can we possibly expect the system to change unless the funding mechanism for FEMA is also changed? A realistic system must be developed which provides for an adequate large-scale planning capability. In any level of government, money equals people, people equal work, and work equals results. If you infuse this equation with good leadership, such as Dave Paulison can provide, great things will happen.
A proper budget must be the bottom line. The best intentions in the world will go for naught if nothing can be accomplished due to a perennial paucity of pennies in the FEMA till. A properly funded FEMA could then serve as the rock-solid platform for all of our national emergency planning efforts.
I also think that it is high time to bring all of the players to the table. I for one am sick and tired of the various federal agencies making all of their plans within the walls of the petty little empires. Sometimes it all reminds me of an old Marx Brother’s movie where the brothers are planning a war against Freedonia. These would be people who have spent their careers, as we used to say in Vietnam, in the rear with the gear. We need people with experience to create these plans.
What makes a cop a better planner than a firefighter? What makes a firefighter a better planner than a cop? Who in the hell cares? Why not sit them both down at the same table and see what a meeting of the minds can create. Why is some career bureaucrat, who wouldn’t know a fire truck from a coal truck, or a police car from a Checker cab supposed to be better able to write up plans for people who have been doing the work for decades?
Why not sit all of these people down, do a SWOT analysis and see what pops up. Let each group lay out its strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps then we can all come together and assess the real and present opportunities and threats that are facing our nation. Please let us see no more top secret plans being drafted behind closed doors in a vacuum. I am sick to death of being fed home cures for our emergency ills that have created out behind the woodshed in Washington.
Perhaps I have gone off on a tangent here. However, maybe I have hit the nail on the head. Only time will tell. However, on our way to that time that will tell, what evil things are there that might befall us? I am tired of lip service. I want to see some action. I want to see some money, and I want to see the “real-world” players involved.
At the absolute least, I want to see an end to the Blowfish Budgets that have crippled the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Who knows? Maybe then I can focus in on creating a cure for the common cold. I will let you know how that one goes.