Pay it forward: volunteers make the difference

Local municipalities learn “secrets” to earning FEMA matching dollars

Connie Lewis

Assistant External Affairs Officer Federal Emergency Management Agency Lacey, Washington

In the January 2009 flood, the small town of South Prairie in east Pierce County was inundated by mud. A local high school initiated an MLK Day service project for its students. Coordinating efforts with the mayor, nearly 75 kids showed up to be a “mud brigade,” shoveling mud out of critically needed roadways, buildings, and the town’s only fire station driveway.

Volunteers are the lifeblood in any community—but more so in those communities struck by swirling floodwaters, damaging mudslides or landslides slamming over roadways, compounded by ice, heavy snow, and rain. Citizens can do double duty. Not only are they working amidst disaster, they are also “paying it forward” by offsetting some of the unanticipated and unbudgeted emergency costs today swamping affected cities and counties.

The time citizens and volunteer groups spend sandbagging, clearing debris from clogged drains, taking and logging calls, staffing warming centers, and many other duties may be an “allowable reimbursement under FEMA Public Assistance programs,” according to the state’s Emergency Management Division (EMD) Public Assistance Program Manager Gary Urbas. “But volunteer efforts need to be organized and documented correctly. The sad thing is that many states throughout the country do not even apply for donated resources.” At least two Washington counties, Pierce and Snohomish, found a bright spot in a declared disaster recovery process: the tracking and documenting of volunteer worker efforts, generally called “Donated Resources.” This process has nearly reimbursed the applicant for its share of matching funds required by FEMA Public Assistance Programs for declared disasters.

For South Prairie, according to Barbara Nelson, Pierce County’s neighborhood emergency team (PC-NET) liaison, “we sent the town forms for documenting the sign-in and sign-out of each of these kids. They collected permission slips from parents, and the County was able to count those substantial volunteer hours toward reimbursement.”

This one volunteer effort brought nearly $11,000 in funding to the town of South Prairie. Pierce County’s organized volunteer efforts resulted in a $29,000 donated resources reimbursement request.

Once a presidential disaster declaration is issued and damages are documented, FEMA can provide up to a 75 percent cost reimbursement for eligible projects. State and local entities then must come up with a 25 percent shared cost match.

“We are submitting a Donated Resources claim for $12,000 to FEMA for this current declared disaster (January 14-23, 2012),” says Richard Schroedel, Pierce County’s Department of Emergency Management (DEM) program coordinator. “If approved, this may again provide for full reimbursement of DEM’s Emergency Operation Center (EOC) operational costs—and may provide for additional coverage to offset other emergency work provided.”

During a 2009 disaster declaration, Pierce County utilized roughly $29,000 in volunteer time that provided an additional $21,000 in federal funding. This assisted the DEM in receiving full reimbursement of its EOC operational costs (roughly $122,000) during that disaster. They also received donated resources reimbursement funding (approximately $6,000) for documented volunteer hours which was applied to offset another department’s unbudgeted and unanticipated emergency disaster work.

“Our contribution of donated resources generally allows us to meet our local match requirement and be eligible to receive additional funding to cover our emergency work costs,” said Veronica Hill, Pierce County’s DEM administrative program manager.

The current Washington disaster, January 14-23, 2012’s severe winter storm, left in its wake 11 counties with damaged roads, trees, power lines, debris, equipment, and more—

Mother Nature’s “gift” to already struggling local governments. Those counties included in the March 5, 2012 presidential disaster declaration were eligible for the FEMA Public Assistance program to help them offset the unexpected emergency expenses needed to protect life, health, safety and personal property.

Snohomish County, hard hit by the winter storms in 2006, had already developed a County Disaster Assistance Program complete with disaster assistance employee job descriptions. By using sign-in/signout sheets and capturing detailed information, they were able to document these volunteer hours, assign a pay rate for each volunteer job, and submit a detailed claim. In doing so, Snohomish County was able to meet the County’s 12.5% match and received 75 percent of its claim for $42,700 in donated resources—adding about $32,000 into its general fund.

“We’ve approached the donated resources issue in a more institutionalized method,” said John E. Pennington, Snohomish County’s Department of Emergency Management (DEM) director. Staff developed this method of how to best track volunteer hours within its Disaster Assistance program by creating position descriptions and pay rates.

Since then, Snohomish County has emerged as a leader for programmatically implementing a Disaster Assistance Program according to Urbas, by codifying task responsibility and job descriptions. According to Diana Rose, DEM’s admin finance program manager, the county is also able to actually “hire” temporary Disaster Assistance Employees to cover critical jobs during emergency situations, if needed, because County Council already approved the job description and pay rate scale.

“This approach works so well for us,” Pennington said, “that technically, when activated, there is zero ambiguity about what emergency workers will do and how much their volunteer hours are valued.”

Pennington also realized the need for other municipalities to understand how to document the many hours volunteers put into help on the home front. He now teaches Emergency Management and Public Policy/Government, including Donations Management and Federal Disaster Declarations at FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute (EMI) to communities across the United States.

Pennington explains that what is critical for FEMA Public Assistance applicants is that volunteer hours are tracked and captured as an existing part of Snohomish County policy. He added that “FEMA really appreciates and often reimburses based upon a local entity’s existing policy, knowing that we are not just making it up as we go.”

Yet still, in the heat of disaster, counties and cities often miss out on documenting many hours of disaster volunteer help because many jurisdictions haven’t approached volunteer management systemically and citizens don’t realize their efforts really do count.

For example, while Pierce County was able to track a lot of volunteer response and recovery activities through its Emergency Operations Center, other efforts slipped through the cracks because at the time there wasn’t a system in place to track hours donated.

“We had a whole cadre of citizens just show up one day with chain saws to clear a blocked road of trees and debris,” said Nelson. “By the time we found out they were there, they were gone. The County missed out on many, many hours of volunteer time that could have been added to our application for funds.”

Connie Lewis can be reached at Connie. Lewis@fema.dhs.gov or (360) 4134566.

For a complete listing of volunteer groups or to get additional information, contact Barbara Nelson, Pierce County Neighborhood Emergency Teams Liaison, Pierce County Citizen Corps, bnelso1@co.pierce.wa.us or (253) 7982168.

For additional information about Snohomish County’s donated resources program, contact Diana Rose at Diana. Rose@co.snohomish.wa.us or (425) 388-5062.

For additional information about Pierce County’s donated resources program, contact Richard Schroedel, at rschroe@ co.pierce.wa.us or (253) 798-6596.

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