FEMA Public Assistance

Building Your Disaster Relief Grant Management Team: Key Grant Management Roles

24 April 2020 by Christina Moore

Key Grant Management Roles

Building your disaster relief grant management team requires identifying people to fill roles. We are building a Cast of Characters for our FEMA Quest Game as a means of helping you identify Good-Guys. There are key grant management roles that we suggest you fill. Stay tuned to learn the value of Wizards and Millers. While we can show you how to manage disaster relief grants, you and your team must do the work.

We are providing these materials to you hoping that you can help your community, your organization survive this disaster and wisely execute the mission before you. If you appreciate this presentation, please share it.

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Good Guy Guide

We’ve invented this fictious game called FEMA Quest. This series will help you confidentially navigate the rough terrain ahead. There are people you have met or will meet along the way. Some are Good Guys. Some of the Good Guys you’ll want as members of your team. And in the next episode, we’ll take a humorous and sincere look at the Bad Guys in this cast of characters.

A couple of these people you want to identify and recruit right away especially the Wizard and the Miller. Finding a Wonk is helpful too. You’re going to want to identify a good Badger and make friends there. Having access to a Scribner is good as well.

These people will hold key grant management roles.

Finding a Wizard

Let’s go find a Wizard and a Miller!

You may already know a Wizard – one of these people who while at a computer find pile of data and can turn that mess into something incredibly useful. One of your early challenges is aggregating all of your payroll data. FEMA wants to see this pile, but the numbers you see – the amounts on the paychecks are not the values FEMA pays. FEMA pays you their hourly rate, plus all of their benefits, uniforms, and such. There is no real abracadabra here. It is work, but the work done by a Wizard seems efficient and effortless. It looks like magic.

What’s amazing about Wizards is that they are often unsung, and do exactly what is needed even if your question isn’t precisely correct.

If you think you have found a Wizard show the entire challenge to them. Not just the tiny piece. Show them the FEMA Quest game. “Hey, do you have any idea how I get the payroll data out of this computer system and turn it into something useful for FEMA that uses their fringe or billing rates.” Show them, let them explore the question.

A Wizard may not be where you expect them. You clearly need payroll data. But the Wizard may not be on that payroll or accounting team. Wizards face challenges as a game. They tend to find ways of saying: I think I can make that happen. A little hesitancy, a soupcon of optimism, and odd sense that they are thinking faster than you are talking.

Finding a Miller

The Miller is another amazing member of your grant management team. Find one, or two, or three. The Miller puts a nose close to the grindstone and works. Take from the pile on the left, grind through it, refine it, process it, and wrap it into a nice neat package. The Miller and the mill work together to gradually and steadily convert raw data and raw documents into something that is a cohesive, value-added product that give credibility and proof to your progress around the gameboard.

Treat your Wizards and Millers well. Give them the right tools. Provide the environment they need. Two screens? Three screens? Give it. A high-speed scanner at their right elbow instead of the left, make it happen. There are people in your world who are not Wizards and Millers. They are good people too.

At Storm Petrel, we know when an organization has a Miller. Our software Tempest-GEMS has reports that shows productivity. The leaderboard shows counts the amount of data entered by person, by week. It also counts the number of documents uploaded by person, by week. The Millers stand together at the top of this report.

In Episode 7, we will continue to explore the cast of characters. We’ll provide you means of identifying the bad guys along the route. We’ll create an identification guide.

Finding a Wonk

A Wonk is a helpful ally too. Sometimes these people are consultants you’ve hired. Maybe this is a colleague from another organization or region who has been through several hurricanes. A Wonk reads and understand federal policy, as it pertains to you. The rules can be very, very helpful to you and your Quest. Knowing them, knowing how to apply them, and even knowing how FEMA has applied them in the past is highly valuable.

Wonk see pathways and solutions in the rules, the policy guides, in the confusing email coming from the various sources. They can see the rules as benefits and risks. Some of my favorite wonk are former lawyers or people who get whacked by a disaster after years of encounters with other federal policies.

The Badger

Who the heck is a Badger? A Badger is a human being with a little plastic badge often from the State or from FEMA. Some Badgers are amazing and helpful human beings. The best Wonk with a wink. A great Badger tell you how to work through a grant management or procurement problem with grace. Like a Warrior and a Wonk they’ve seen similar problems. They know what will cause the back-of-house people to get entirely fussed up.

I almost called this character FEMA Bob in honor of my own FEMA Bob. He sat in my office and said: Show me this. I pull out a pile of pictures and document. He’d pick a few and say: Never show these to me, ever. This Badger always showed and proved to me that he was my advocate. He is fair. He is honest. And he is experienced. This is the Badger to know.

We are providing you a Good Guy identification guide. This serves as reminder to find people to help. Click the links below to download this guide

The Scribner

A Scribner is not a Wonk, but some Wonks are also Scribners. You may get into a situation where the rules support your actions and position but FEMA or your State entirely disagree with you. While a Wonk can guide you through the nest of rules, a Scribner can write the email, letters, appeals, and other documents that un-mess stuff.

There is a formula for writing policy stuff. You start with the federal law, work up through administrative law, draw on written policy guidance, and research past rulings from FEMA. It is, in so many ways, a legal brief – except we never admit that. And we never actually call it that.

And we try not to have lawyers sign them. If you Scribner happens to have a Juris Doctorate, leave it off, or have someone in authority at the organization sign the document that was ghost written by the Scribner.

The quality of the writing and the depth of the research informs the recipient that the Scribner knows this material well. FEMA may own the court room, sit as judge, and prosecutor, and jury, and, oddly, it also serves as its own appellate service. When it comes down to it, FEMA must exercise professional discretion based firmly on the law, its own law.

Recruit Allies and Teammates

Most of the time, should not try wend your way through FEMA Quest alone. Recruit allies and teammates to help with the grant management basics. Find yourself a Wizard to help turn numbers into information; a Miller who grinds away daily during raw materials into neat, useful packages; Get to know a Wonk – keep informed on the policies and regulations. Your Wonk may also be a Badger. Badgers, people with small plastic badges, can be very helpful and sometimes very not-helpful.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the Good Guy Identification Guide to help you get started with FEMA Quest.

Good Guy Identification Guide

Are You Eligible For A FEMA Grant?

16 April 2020 by Christina Moore

FEMA Public Assistance Eligibility

In our series on how to manage disaster relief grants, we hope to help you and your community benefit from FEMA grants. By studying the public assistance eligibility, you will learn how to get FEMA funding for COVID-19 response in your community. This episode asks the following questions: are you eligible for a FEMA grant? Are you eligible for a FEMA grant for COVID-19? Are you eligible for a FEMA grant for COVID-19 response?

We will help you answer this question by exploring the rules on eligibility as described in the FEMA PAPPG.

Eligibility Matters

We’ve invented this fictious game called FEMA Quest. This series will help you confidentially navigate the rough terrain ahead and thrive while managing a FEMA grant. But who gets to play? Are you eligible for a FEMA grant for COVID-19?

If you are allowed on the playing field and you plan to ask for money, you must qualify as an eligible applicant. It is a pretty binary situation: you is or you ain’t.

So, an organization either qualifies as an eligible applicant or it does not. That’s barrier number one.

Barrier number two to playing FEMA Quest involves the facilities involved. This is a little less interesting with the 2020 COVID-19 disaster response, but it is a critical rule for weather-based disasters.

If you get through those two, you are on the FEMA Quest map. Your mission, the work you perform and the materials you buy must align (1) align perfectly with the scope of the disaster and the scope of work authorized by FEMA Grants and (2) be necessary and (3) reasonable.

This is the outline of this episode:

Applicant eligibility
Facility eligibility
Work eligibility

Are you Non-Profit?

Ugh, I have been on phone calls and in rooms where the use of the word “applicant” became contentious. I’ll digress for a minute on this term. A few years ago, the United States federal government endeavored to unify the grant management rules so that all agencies and all programs executed their processes consistently. This unified set of rules is called 2CFR200. In this august body of words, the authors used “sub-recipient”. An awkwardly precise term. A sub-recipient is a grant applicant who receives their funds via a “recipient”. The “recipient” is often a state agency who administers the grant on behalf of the federal agency.

I don’t care much about the word. Applicant is a lovely, accurate word and is easy to say. An applicant submitted an application for a grant. Recipient is a nice word to. A Recipient is an Applicant who has (or very likely) will be in receipt of grant funds. A sub-recipient is an applicant and a recipient. See, a sub-recipient submitted an application. And a sub-recipient will also be in receipt of moneys.

FEMA’s publications use the words nearly interchangeably. The FEMA PAPPG certainly calls those who apply for grants “applicants”.

Pick your word, be flexible and celebrate the diversity that people bring to any process. And be kind to each other. There are no points given to any player for arguing over sub-recipient versus applicant. There are way more interesting arguments to have. This isn’t one.

What makes an applicant eligible? The prime directive is: The applicant must be a non-profit organization.

· Is Storm Petrel LLC a non-profit organization? No. We are not. So not eligible.

· Is the City of New York a non-profit organization? Yes, it is. Could be eligible.

You is or you ain’t. This is a pretty binary discussion.

Organizations that are non-profit file specific forms with the IRS. There are dozens of types of non-profits. The IRS code is filled with them.

There are non-profit ambulance services and for-profit services. There are for-profit water districts and non-profit water districts.

Being a non-profit organization is only the first test.

Government or Not?

The next test asks if you are a government or not. Sadly, this is not binary, well it is, but the answering can be very complicated. Some organizations are clearly governments. The Town of Halifax, Vermont – this is a government. The Borough of Anchorage Alaska is a government. Our great nation is founded on so diverse cultural influences. I love this diversity. I have been getting to know New Mexico a bit through our contract with that great state. I am humbled. Ancient Native American traditions stand proudly, as well as some Mexican traditions, and Anglo-American traditions. When forming governments and government-like organizations sometimes these traditions blend and sometimes they do not blend.

I know enough not to bring very New England/Yankee understanding of government to this corner of our shared country. And during my decade in Alaska, I worked for Alaska Native Medical Center and the U.S. Public Health Service. I also worked for three of regional native health hospitals.

Defining the Government

I know enough to declare I can not define a government. Louisiana carries traditions of French Common Law. And here in Vermont and Massachusetts, we are firmly embedded in English traditions from the 1600s.

If you are a government then you are an eligible applicant. These include school districts, municipalities, intra-state and interstate organizations, and other interesting odd entities.

If you have been previously defined as a government by FEMA, then you are likely all set. If FEMA has never ever heard of you, set up a meeting to discuss the situation. You be you and prove how it is that your organization is a government.

That’s test number two. It is really easy for so many cases, then there is that one situation where it isn’t. You’ll gather your evidence. You’ll read the rules in the FEMA PAPPG. You’ll contact peers in your region and across the nation.

In Episode 6 we will return to the FEMA Quest game. We will explore some of the good-guys you’ll meet in that terrain. We’ll create an identification guide together and suggest you recruit some good-guys to your team.

Non-Governmental Non-Profit Organizations

To recap. For-profit versus non-profit?

If you are for-profit, you’ve been excluded from the FEMA Public Assistance Grant Program. The clue is in the name: Public.

Government or non-governmental non-profit organization?

If you are a government, then you are eligible.

What is left?

Non-governmental non-profit organizations. In casual speech,
many Americans would say: NGO meaning non-governmental organization. The UN introduced
some precision to the definition NGO. It is really close to what FEMA means with PNP – private non-profit.

What is a PNP in FEMA lingo? It is non-governmental not-for-profit
organization that provides essential government-like services.

This is the land of many discussions and arguments. Is there
one key phrase that makes PNP eligible and not eligible? There is. It is “Public”. If your organization provides an essential public service to the general public, then you are likely an eligible applicant. Let’s be extremely clear: FEMA makes these determinations.

In the early hours of a disaster, FEMA tosses PNP to the ignore-pile
aggressively. In time, they come around and sort through the PNPs and make determinations. Hang tight. Their first word is never the final word. If your services match their definitions of essential or critical, FEMA will come around with time and a bit of a gentle nudge.

Behave as if you are Eligible

I applaud FEMA efforts to ensure that our tax dollars for public assistance hit their intended target. Yes, there is a frayed edge with
organizations that provide great services and don’t classically fit into the neat definitions FEMA offers. You’ll have to wait patiently for a ruling. If this is you, then behave as if you are eligible. Use federal procurement rules. Log your time. Calculate your fringe rates. Behave exactly like an eligible applicant should. If the ruling is in your favor, you didn’t blow up your chances for reimbursement.

If you insist you are an eligible PNP and then you disregard
federal procurement rules and you don’t log your labor and equipment correctly, you sunk your own battleship. You fought to be a player at the game of FEMA Quest then by ignoring the rules, walked away.

You can not have it both ways.

We have a handout with lovely lists of Likely Eligible
things for you to download. And it is in the PAPPG on pages 10 and 11 and 13. Let’s touch on a few.

Is a for-profit hospital eligible? No. It is for-profit.

Is Brattleboro Memorial Hospital a likely eligible facility?
According to their website, it is a 61-bed not-for-profit community hospital. Tick, non-profit. Is medical services a critical public service? Yes. Tick. There you go. Probably an eligible applicant.

Sometimes a for-profit organization is associated with a
non-profit foundation. The basic rule involves seeing how the non-profit arm operates. If the payroll, vehicle, building leases, and operational expenses are carried by the non-profit, then maybe it is eligible. Most for-profits don’t do that. The routine daily operational costs are needed to offset profit and reduce tax burden. Non-profit affiliates tend to have very specific missions that do not overlap with the daily operations.

We are providing you a copy of these rules in a simplified manner – like a game card. While it looks like a game, it is a sincere means of helping you track through this process.

Work Eligibility

Facility is a FEMA term that is a catch-all for building, works, systems, equipment, improved or maintained natural feature. There are some interesting challenges with facility. But I don’t think facilities will factor heavily in the COVID-19 grant funding. Property is not being destroyed by flood waters, wind, or fire. Don’t dismiss the value “facilities” as a critical feature, but we can discount the topic a little bit.

And move on to the eligibility of work. You have a HUGE RISK here. People make massive mistakes with the eligibility of work. FEMA is pretty firmly in charge of the determination of eligibility of applicants and facilities.

If you are an eligible applicant, and your facilities are eligible, then you know this because you have been awarded a grant. FEMA lets go of your hand here. They authorized a scope of work for your organizations.

People, you must pay 100% attention to 100% of the words in the scope of work. Your scope of work will be written on a form called the 90-91. You must not only do what is in the scope of work, you must prove you did it, in writing, on documents that you will scan to PDF.

If you run a non-profit ambulance service, and your scope of work states that you must apply with the clean water act, then you must comply with this act. And you must find a means of proving you complied. How would I do this? I’d find a summary of the clean water act and post it in the break room. I’d email it to the team and inform them of mandatory training. Do 5 minutes of training on the Clean Water Act and other compliance things. Submit the roster and the email as proof. As a paramedic or EMT, this makes no sense. But to play FEMA Quest, you want that point. Go get that point. Seems stupid but in under 10 minutes of effort you are done.

There is no Ambiguity

Clean Water Act aside. The mistake people make is executing tasks that are not authorized. If the scope of work describes picking up blue dots. Then you must prove that you picked up blue dots. If you submit labor costs for picking up all dots, including the green and the yellow dots, you will have your labors costs denied.

I’ll restate this. If the grant’s scope of work describes funding picking up blue dots and give a budget of say $200,000, then your mission is to pickup exactly blue dots. If you pick up yellow dots, you must not report yellow-dot labor costs. If your labor logs and labor reporting is vague, the entire $200,000 may be rejected. If your photographs, logs, and invoices show only blue dots, then you’ve proven you stayed on the path.

It matters.

If your labor costs exceed $200,000 you must either stop the work, or you must ask for an increased budget.

FEMA ties the grant value to the authorized work. They are two sides of the same coin. I have worked bridge projects. FEMA specified the compression strength of the concrete and the color-coded type of the rebar within the concrete. We provided the lab-results associated with samples taken during the concrete pour. We provided invoices showing the rebar type and augmented that with photographs showing the rebar in place as concrete was poured.

There was no ambiguity. They specific green rebar and some precise PSI. We showed them we executed precisely with invoices, photographs, and lab reports.

You make the Request. FEMA Answers.

Are you eligible for a FEMA grant for COVID-19 response?

The public funds that FEMA provides must be used to complete an essential government-like function. The team executing the grants and paying the bills must be a non-profit entity – either a government or government-like organization, or a private non-profit (PNP) that meets FEMA criteria.

If you’ve met the above criteria, you may be awarded a grant by FEMA to execute a project or a mission. That grant will have a precise and detailed scope of work. This grant will have an estimated value and an obligated value. You must work within that budget and perform that tasks in the scope of work.

If you perform work that is not in the scope, it is not eligible.

If you exceed your budget, you must request a scope and budget change before you hit that limit.

There is NO flexibility on this, unless you work within the rules and with your team. You may request a change to the scope and request a change to the budget and even request a change to the completion date. You make the Request. FEMA and your state’s administration team will provide you answers and guidance.

Please share this material with colleagues. Post about us and our efforts on your favorite social media platform. And don’t forget to grab the map to help you get started with FEMA Quest.

Download FEMA Quest Rules

FEMA Grant Management FEMA Public Assistance Category B Grant and the PAPPG

16 April 2020 by Christina Moore

FEMA Public Assistance & Cat B

We want to show you how to get FEMA funding for COVID-19 response in your community. This series of videos, podcasts, and blogs provides federal grant management training to everyone. In this episode we will examine the FEMA PAPPG – FEMA Public Assistance Programs Policy Guide, also called Papa-G focusing on the Category B grant. Cat B is how FEMA provides funding for emergency protective measures.

Emergency Protective Measures

In spring of 2020, the United States Federal Government started issuing disaster declarations related to the COVID-19 emergency. These disaster declarations trigger actions and funding through the Robert T Stafford Act of 1988. The disaster funds, so far, have been authorized for Emergency Protective Measures, also called Category B. This is a FEMA grant of money to execute on missions and projects to help us all survive this crisis.

In this episode, I will define Cat B and Emergency Protective Measures. I will draw a figurative box around these definitions. Unlike some of my other presentations I will draw directly from and quote the relevant FEMA literature.

This matters to you in the same way that the rules of a board game matter. FEMA definitions, rules, and policies level the playing field and give both you and FEMA guidance. In the game of FEMA Quest, the party who knows the rules better wins points.

Category B

Let’s put Category B in context. FEMA has defined a series of categories of work and lettered them as A through G plus Z. Categories A and B are emergency work, meaning work that is done before, during, or immediately following a disaster. Categories C through G address permanent work. Permanent work are normally larger capital projects that rebuild public infrastructure such as buildings, bridges, roads, water control facilities. What is Category A? Category A relates to the removal of debris.

And Z? Category Z is an un-documented category that is used by states to recover grant administrative costs. So that’s categories A to Z.

When dealing with federal programs, there is always a necessary discussion of the predicating laws. First, this grant program is authorized by Congress in the Robert T Stafford Act. This is presented on Page 1, as it should be. I am looking at the FEMA Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide. You can download this PDF from our links or FEMA. Same document. You’ll want the April 2018 version, or later. I like having the current and the most previous.

Other laws that relate are both 44CFR200 and 2CFR200. Often, if you see a phrase in the Papa-G, it is lifted literally from the underlying law. You won’t know unless you look. You do not need to know on day one. In time, these obscurities become a power-up weapon on your belt. That’s later.

I’ll cover eligibility in Episode 5, the next episode. The two key issues related to the type of organization and the type of work. So stay tuned.

3-pillars of Emergency Protective Measures

I have a memory aid for the 3-pillars of Emergency Protective Measures – and they are completely wrong but I enjoy saying: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Those certainly are the three-pillars of the Declaration of Independence. They do relate. The three pillars are: the preservation of live, the protection of public health, and the protection of improved property – that is threatened by the disaster. It really is about the core values of a community.

Things that count: emergency operations center operations; medical care and transport; security; searching to locate and recover human remains.

The COVID-19 disaster is a difficult world for FEMA and most emergency managers to wrap their heads around. Here in New England, we know how to recover from flooding and wind damage. It is very difficult for us to get a disaster declared following a blizzard. We’re pretty good at that sort of stuff.

Procurement Eligibility

A global and nationwide public health emergency is an unknown to us. The list that FEMA offers in the publications available as of April 2020 is not intented to the entirety of it. Top of page 38 of my book it states: “This list is not all-inclusive.”

Why does this matter to you? Your organization may have done something that stands proudly on one of the three pillars but is not obvious. It will be on you to create the link and prove it to FEMA. Be honest and be fair. We are all in this together. Some school districts are using the commercial school bus service to deliver food to students at home. That’s not on the list.

Obviously, I can’t be the authority – but I’ll argue it is eligible. It is protecting the public health. By providing the free breakfasts and lunches to students, we are preserving their lives and health. By using door-to-door delivery, we are maintaining the necessary public distancing and following the well-known public health guidelines. We are using resources through an existing contracted service – the local bus company. This likely met procurement rules.

This is the kind of thinking that will be required. You’ll need to demonstrate in writing and with affirmative links to the policy why paying someone to drive the bookmobile down dirt roads in Rural Vermont was a necessary and cost-effective means of preserving public health.

Hear It, Verify It

It will be your job to make the link. So read the policy, and think through it.

Governors and FEMA executives will provide more guidance to us all in time.

When you hear it, verify it.

Some information will be wrong. For example, if commercial-for-profit entity declares that they are eligible to directly receive FEMA funding because they did work that stands on one of these three pillars, they are not going to get funding. This is the wrong program, wrong process.

The rules matter.

Exigent Circumstances & Emergency Procurement

Cat B costs tend to involve labor and equipment costs for responding organizations. In FEMA lingo, this is Force Account Labor, Force Account Equipment, and Force Account Material. This is you mobilizing your forces on behalf of a federally-funded mission.

We have several episode that discuss the labor costs, fringe rate calculations, and the reporting of these costs.

The nature of this particular disaster may involve procurement. Be aware, that you MUST follow federal procurement guidelines. There will be a lot said in the early days about “exigent circumstances” and “emergency procurement”. Typically, the guidance limits this to a 72 hour period, or 3 days. Please, please, please do all the procurement you can using a public, fair, open competitive process. People will push the limits of “emergency procurement” and abuse it quickly. FEMA will then start disallowing these purchases faster than you can spell procurement.

It is a sucker’s bet. Stepping through the competitive process will benefit you in the long term.

Just because we are in an emergency, does not automatically justify emergency procurement. Do I need to say that again. This is an emergency, yes. And that is not sufficient to justify and exigent procurement process. If you do opt for emergency justification document the heck out of it. Write down the justification. Pass a motion. Do it in public. And don’t give that money to your cousin or uncle. That’s a quick trip to a bad place.

What’s Next?

Moving Forward with Competitive Procurement

Here’s the best test: Are you able to get 3 quotes? Can you get information to a number of suppliers about the products or services you need? If you can, do a competitive procurement.

The three pillars of Emergency Protective Measures are (1) reduction or elimination of threat to life (2) protection of public health and safety and (3) protect improved property that is threatened by this disaster.

Link your activities to one these pillars. Use detailed logs to track time and miles. Then report this work honestly and completely as needed in the grant lifecycle.

Along the way, follow the federal procurement guidelines. And do competitive procurement, it will keep you and the funds safe.

Download the Category B Policy Guide

FEMA Public Assistance Grant Program Lifecycle: How To Manage Disaster Relief Grants

15 April 2020 by Christina Moore

Managing Disaster Relief Grants

We want to help you and your team use FEMA disaster assistance wisely. We are using a series of videos, podcasts, and blog posts to help you understand the FEMA public assistance grant program. This episode helps with navigating public assistance following a disaster. During this presentation we will discuss the FEMA PAPPG (Public Assistance Program Policy Guide) and the Stafford Act.

Introduction to the Application Process & FEMA Grants Portal

In this episode, we will reference the FEMA Quest game that we invented to illustrate the FEMA Public Assistance grant lifecycle. This time, we’ll take a bit more a buttoned-up, collared shirt approach. We will step through the FEMA process using FEMA terms and applying more standard government-like language. We intend to bridge between our casual and fun way to looking at the process and the FEMA-lingo.

We will introduce you to the application process and FEMA Grants Portal. We’ll discuss terms such as obligation and grant award. We’ll drive home the importance of the scope-of-work.

We will again touch on the difference between large and small grants.

As we step through the lifecycle, we’ll identify the differences in each phase. Here FEMA seems in charge. Here your state. Here you do your thing quietly. And the tools available to you as you work through this.

We’ll define reimbursement and advances. We’ll touch on other Requests that you may make to your state.

The lifecycle concludes with Closeout and the final reimbursements.

The next Episode is about the FEMA Public Assistance Category “B” grant used for Emergency Protective Measures.

FEMA Public Assistance Grant Program

There are elements of the FEMA Public Assistance Grant Program that are more hidden to the normal applicant, and I am going to ignore those elements. This process that I care the most about begin when we know that a disaster has been declared, or it is likely one that will be declared. You and I can do little about the process before declaration. That’s between the governor and the president and FEMA.

For coastal community, we know that when a hurricane impacts us, our declaration may include several days before the impact. That’s interesting and it is relevant to COVID-19 because most declarations I have seen so far (April 2020) set the date of disaster to 20JAN which is almost 45 to 60 days ago. You have costs that may be eligible for weeks prior to the declaration.

My audience are people who are responsible for executing projects funded by FEMA grant dollars. Therefore, our starting point is the Disaster Declaration and more precisely the Performance Start Date. There is no grant before this moment.

The experienced amongst us may start collecting data and logs beforehand in anticipation of funding. Good for you. Well done.

The Grant Application process with FEMA is squishy and flexible. Of course, the day you are informed about it, then it is precise!

Follow the rules of the day! Why is it squishy and flexible? Because the process changes one disaster to another. They (whoever they are) won’t admit this. Some years, you must be physically present in a room and sign a roster and fill out a piece of paper to declare your intent. Not likely with COVID-19.

Sometimes, you’ll be instructed to go to the FEMA Grants Portal to initiate your process. Through 2019, that was either absolutely mandatory or unknown. FEMA and state directors figured that out along the way. There is a rumor here in April 2020 that the COVID-19 grant application process may go to the Grants Portal for some and others will be helped in other ways.

I can’t help. There is a grant application process. It is either in FEMA Grants Portal or Not. And at the end of the process you will have zero, one, or more grant awards with federal funds obligated to it.

What do you need for the grant application?

Number 1 is a means of estimating the cost of the disaster. The declarations I have seen involve Category B – Emergency Protective Measures. Any action that your governmental entity undertook to prevent death, improve public health, and protect improved property from the impacts of this disaster may be eligible for reimbursement. If you run a municipality or municipal agency, you are a likely candidate. If your organization provides essential government-like services, you are a likely candidate. In our Eligibility post we discuss this topic. This includes non-profit ambulance services, non-profit water districts, non-profit libraries and non-profit hospitals/nursing facilities.

You’ll need to estimate your labor costs. Go listen to the first episode in this series for help on that or read it here. You’ll need to estimate material costs, incidental costs, and contracted costs.

If you contracted services and purchased materials, know that the federal procurement rules apply. We talk a lot about this in this series. That’s your biggest trap right there.

The grant application involves cost estimates and the scope-of-work you provided or may provide in the future.

The best help we can provide is give you the rule book for this game. It’s called the Papa-G, the public assistance program and policy guide (PAPPG).

PAPP Guide

FEMA Grants Lifecycle

1. Grant Application

The grant application for FEMA involves the following elements

Cost Estimates for labor, equipment, material for activities that have been completed
Cost Estimates for labor, equipment, and material for activities that are planned.

The activities must be within the proposed scope of the grant and fit within the confines of the FEMA Public Assistance Grant Program. This means between date X and date Y (the start of performance and end of performance dates).

For COVID-19, this also means that the activities directly supported Emergency Protective Measures (preservation of life, public health, and at-risk improved property).

If you request funding for labor, equipment, and material costs, you MUST provide the documents that provides proof for your labor costs. These include labor contracts, union contracts, payroll records, work logs that tie the activities to eligible work. For equipment, you’ll need to provide equipment logs and costing based on the FEMA equipment schedule.

For non-labor based costs, you’ll need to execute procurement within the guidelines of your procurement policy, your state’s procurement policy, AND the federal procurement policy – which ever is the most strict. This tends to require more documentation than standard small government/non-profit process and open bidding processes.

Supporting Proof for Grant Application

Supporting documents for grant application:

Applicant documents such as:

Union Contracts
Labor Agreements
Fringe Rate Calculations

Labor Cost Support

Work Logs
Payroll Records

Expenses Support

Contracting Documents
Invoice
Proof of Payment

And estimates for work yet to be completed.

2. Grant Award (Obligation of Funds)

The grant lifecycle really starts at Award or Obligation. The process of making the award is typically FEMA led, or if State-led, then FEMA has a heavy hand behind the scenes. And let me define state. In 2CFR200.90, the US Government defined state to include the territories and the District of Columbia. Within the body of laws related to federal grants, we have 58 states.

3. Grant Management

After grant award, and financial obligation by FEMA, you’ll be responsible for tracking actual costs, executing procurement in accordance to federal law, and collecting documents proving you did each action that is required of you.

You may make requests of the state to extend the timeline, ask for more money, ask for reimbursement. In time, you’ll be ready to close out your grant.

Common tasks in this extended phase (typically the longest phase) include:

Requests for Advanced Funding
Requests for Reimbursement
Quarterly Progress Reports
Requests for: scope/budget change, appeals, etc

99. Grant Close Out (Your End Goal)

Your ultimate objective is to recover funds from FEMA and your state within the legal bounds. The grant lifecycle really starts with the grant application phase. You’ll provide cost estimates and describe your
mission. . You’ll collate all of your documents in a neat orderly fashion then submit to your state. Note that this maybe seem like a duplicate process. You gave them this or that. Doesn’t matter. Your close-out book is the story from Bang to Closeout inclusive.

COVID-19 Emergency Funds: How To Prepare To Receive Them

23 March 2020 by Christina Moore

How to Manage Disaster Relief Funds

24 March 2020

Emergency funds and the Stafford Act will impact every civic leader in our nation during the next weeks. We have prepared a series of educational videos, podcasts, white papers, workbooks, and other materials to help us all out. While the times may be uncertain, the facts of the 1988 Stafford Act are not. Historically 75% of fund recipients experience failure when managing these funds. Our promise is to improve the lives of the American public by assuring immediate, effective, responsible management of these grant funds.

My name is Christina Moore. Nine years ago, I had never experienced the anxiety nor understood the risks associated with this federal grant program. Then my community got hit by Hurricane Irene. Since that day to this, I have managed over $5 billion in FEMA funds. I’m a certified emergency manager, a former EMS Chief, critical care paramedic who was deployed to disasters in New York City, Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas, Vermont, and Connecticut.

Funds are Coming

That’s not the story we’ll tell years from now. Emergency funds come with specific legal obligations for the community leader, fire chief, mayor, local nonprofit director, EMS chief, police chief. These funds will flow into every sector of our civic life. If you have a civic job, work or volunteer for any organization that is responding to the COVID-19 emergency, these emergency funds will touch your lives. There are those who have not been scarred by experiences with FEMA monies and there are those who are scared of future interactions with emergency funds. Scared people and scarred people have an advantage over the newbies. The first step requires acknowledging that these funds are public. You are the steward of these funds even before you spend them. What do I mean? If you spend a dollar now that you think the emergency funds will reimburse you for, you must follow the federal rules today.

I have two immediate actions that civic leaders can take.

What to Know

The Stafford Act provides the United States federal government with the authorization to reimburse eligible parties for expenses related to nationally declared disasters. The law came into effect in the late 1980s and has helped millions of people in thousands of communities. Hurricane Katrina, the damage from the World Trade Centers, and the recent disasters in Puerto Rico to name a few, it has a broad scope. The core intent is to use federal funds and resources to help communities like yours return from the impact of disaster. The primary goal is restoration of essential services. The secondary goal is to improve resiliency when facing crisis. The emergency funds described in the news and in the law are grants, an entity such as the local fire department or library will be awarded a grant.

With a grant award, federal funds will be obligated, reserved equal to the grant award. When you accept the grant funds, you simultaneously accept the legal responsibility to follow the federal laws for grant management and for federal procurement. That information is never obvious upfront and it becomes clear weeks, months, or even years after you’ve spent the first dollar. Let’s avoid the oops. It’s easier than it appears. Think of it as a board game with rules. Play by the rules, step through the obstacles. Unlike a board game, managing emergency funds should have thousands of winners. Failure to follow the rules has serious impact.

Let’s Scare you for a Minute

The biggest risk we face when managing federal grant funds is the loss of that money. When you make a mistake today, seven years from now FEMA can come along and ask for that money back. There is a case of a nursing home in Colorado that received $11 million in 2013 following flooding. In 2020 the Department of Homeland Security found errors. Their published findings suggest that half of that money, $5.57 million be returned to FEMA. Now imagine being the administrator of that nonprofit nursing home. I’m confident that that facility does not have $5 million in their pocket. When this happens to towns, counties, and states, the risk is that there is a local tax increase.

The next biggest risk results from a paperwork issue that resembles fraud. If you do not follow the rules and somehow the federal government can prove that you or your family benefited, you may face felony fraud charges. Sometimes they don’t even need to prove that you benefited. If you intentionally bypass a step, you may have committed fraud. If you accidentally bypass a step, you may have just impacted the tax rates for your community for years to come.

Scared yet?

Do be a little scared all the time. Be respectful of the duty you have assumed. You have a legal obligation to be fair and open about the use of these funds. The funds may be used precisely for the purpose FEMA intends. If they give you funds to buy 100 masks for $100 and you buy magic beans that cure COVID instead, you’ve done wrong.

The Mechanics and Why it Matters

The funds originate with the US government with FEMA as the lead agency. The administration of the grant funds is done by a state agency. The state agency varies by state. And by the way, when I say state, I include the territories and districts of the United States. The term state is precisely defined in 2 CFR 200,90 and it bundles district of Columbia, Virgin Islands, Guam, et cetera, into the word state. 2 CFR 200 is the code of federal regulations that establishes a unified set of rules for federal grant management. States administer the funds on behalf of FEMA. The funds flow down. The local civic leader, you or your neighbor will be invisibly deputized to manage these funds.

Stafford Act Rule #1

Funds can be used to reimburse for eligible expenses. You may not use emergency funds for noneligible expenses. Pretty basic stuff.

Stafford Act Rule #2

Expenses must be reasonable and necessary to complete the work. You are the steward of my tax dollars and they’re your dollars too. Each dollar spent must be for a necessary purpose and the cost must be reasonable.

One Plus Two Equals Action

From today on, or last week or last month, you have disaster specific expenses, but you also have to manage the basic everyday operations. Therefore, you need to identify what actions you and your team are taking that relates specifically to the disaster. You also need to identify what costs you and your team are encumbering while preparing and responding to this disaster.

FEMA’s own rules of what will likely be considered for reimbursement include the following three. Tasks that we undertake to eliminate or reduce the threat to life, that’s one. Number two, protect the public health and safety. Number three, and protect improved property that is threatened. If your actions and related costs fall into these three categories and you happen to run a governmental or governmental-like entity, then your expenses in labor costs may be reimbursed by FEMA. FEMA may reimburse your labor costs, your equipment costs, and materials that you use or buy while providing emergency response given the rules above of course.

Actions

Make a list of actions and expense categories that meet the rules above. Be specific. Maybe your police department delivers food to isolated people during the crisis, that could be an eligible cost. You’ll likely get reimbursed for the miles the officer drove and the hours that the officer worked on that specific task. Responding to the car accident in the middle of that mission is not eligible. You report these differences with a very detailed paper log. Hey, if you have a sophisticated dispatch system or a task management system, then this is easy for you. For most teams, this is a burden. It is a pain in the anatomy, I get it. I’ve done it. Where’s the win? You have shifted community funded costs to a federally funded grant.

Action #1

Make a list of the activities your team is taking or plan to take that are related to the disaster and those three key principles. For example,

Task: Food, water delivery to those at risk.

Purpose: Reduce the threat to life by keeping people nourished.

You can give it a shorthand code if you’d like. It’s easier to write on a log.

Code: COVID food distribution.

Maybe you take on another task. Maybe you host an online community forum with social media and live video. The aim is to provide education on the management of mild cases of COVID and when to call for help with emergency services.

Task: Public health education.

Purpose: Protection of public health.

Add to this list as you need to. Collaborate with the team. Share it. Use it as a touchstone for the actions and the plans that you’ve got.

Action #2

Have a means of logging the activities to the nearest 15 minutes. It’s a super granular time sheet. Each line that is clearly linked to the reduction of threat of life, the protection of public health and safety, and the protection of at-risk property could be reimbursed by FEMA. The logs must be specific. Don’t just write COVID on a line. Link your time and expense to the activities identified in action number one. Connect the dots between the rules and the actions; you want to show that your action is possibly eligible and reasonable.