Public Budgeting FEMA S Budget Research Paper

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Finance and Budgeting

Mission and Goals of the Organization

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA's stated mission also encompasses its goals. The mission statement is "to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain and improve our capability to protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate all hazards" ("About the Agency," 2016) This mission is fairly sweeping, allowing the organization substantial scope to handle a wide range of issues. From a budgetary perspective, there are several implications of this mission. First, there are preventative measures, which implies that FEMA will have certain ongoing programs regardless of whether any emergencies arise. There will also need to be an infrastructure in place to handle disasters, and this infrastructure will need regular funding. The mission also specifically addresses the need to respond to hazards, and the unpredictable nature of these hazards means that FEMA will need to have funds ready to mobilize quickly in the event of a disaster. Disasters range from those that are somewhat predictable ahead of time, such as hurricanes, to things like earthquakes that happen without warning.

Some of the current issues that FEMA is dealing with are as follows. It is assisting with Health and Human Services in the Flint water crisis. It is providing frontline assistance in Missouri and Mississippi in specific counties for the tornadoes, floods and other weather conditions of December, 2015. FEMA had also previously responded to flooding in South Carolina in October, 2015. An example of one of FEMA's ongoing programs is the Youth Preparedness Council, which was formed in 2012 to help mobilize young people in disaster mitigation. FEMA also has things like an app that can be used to help people understand the organization when there is no crisis, but also to directly link those in need of response with FEMA during times of crisis.

The organizational structure of FEMA begins with a corporate superstructure with the Department of Homeland Security under Administrator W. Craig Fugate. There are a number of offices that handle general issues at a national level, such as legal affairs, finance, law enforcement, grant programs and neighborhood partnerships. There are also a number of regional offices for ten different regions of the country. There are specific administrators for things like mitigation, insurance, response and recovery, fire, and functional groupings like human capital, procurement and information ("FEMA Organizational Chart," 2015).

II. Ethical Considerations

Schervish and Havens (2015) provide some insight into the ethical considerations faced by FEMA. The agency's role in disaster mitigation, readiness and response was born out of ethical considerations. The existence of FEMA is part of the social contract between U.S. taxpayers and their government, in that disaster recovery is essentially a public good. Individuals and corporations can assist in disaster recovery, but as disasters affect entire communities on a large scale, and the nature of disaster management is comprehensive, only an agency as powerful as the federal government, with its resource base, formal authority and ability to coordinate, can help a region to recover effectively, especially in areas where disaster recovery would not be profitable for a private entity. Thus, FEMA has a particular moral authority and its formation closed an ethical gap in the structure of the federal government.

FEMA's status as an agency within Homeland Security also hints at the ethics of the organization. Disasters weaken the nation as a whole. Without the ability to manage disasters, and recover from them, the nation is more vulnerable. Thus, FEMA has a particular moral imperative that is related to national security. Having sufficient funds in its budget to perform its duties, and using those funds most efficiently, is critical to the fulfillment of the federal government's obligations to defend the nation, as per Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, which grants Congress the power to provide for the common defense, including the provision of the necessary infrastructure to perform that role.

Given the relationship between the existence of FEMA and the ethical obligations of the federal government, it stands to reason that FEMA must also perform its budgeting with the utmost ethical standards in order that it fulfill not only its obligations to Congress but also to the American taxpayer. Budget actions and decisions need to reflect the ethical mandate of the organization, and must be performed at the highest level of integrity so as to ensure that the taxpayer's money is being used to perform only the tasks for which the federal government has been granted powers under the Constitution.

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FEMA's budgeting process incorporates this common understanding of its mandate, and the ethical responsibility that it has to balance efficient spending with the effective performance of its duties (Menson, 1990). This is not easy, given that FEMA's budget is a blend of regularly-funded programs and the need to have monies available for emergency relief.

III. Technological Considerations

Technology plays an important role in the budgeting process for many governmental organizations, and it is the same for FEMA. The budget for FEMA is set by the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA makes up a relatively small portion of the overall DHS budget. The FEMA budget of $15.4 billion is comprised of around one-third mandatory and two-thirds discretionary spending. There is also a $7.1 billion disaster relief fund, which allows FEMA to mobilize resources quickly in the event of a disaster. The FEMA strategic plan is the basis for this budget.

Information technology plays a key role in setting the budget, and in budget management. The first way it does this is that FEMA can communicate its spending in real time, as items are entered into the accounting systems. This allows for FEMA and DHS to track spending effectively. The FEMA budget for one fiscal year is based on the prior fiscal year, with adjustments. Thus, tracking spending is one of the more important tasks in the budgeting process, to ensure that spending targets are being met. Information technology allows for more effective tracking of expenditures, so that these can be recorded and communicated more quickly within FEMA and to DHS, allowing for more accurate preparation of the budget as a whole.

For the budget allotment for disaster relief, more complex calculations are utilized. FEMA utilizes the prior year's expenditures, but also builds in a ten-year moving average of disaster relief expenditures in order to estimate the need based on the normal rate and scope of disasters faced by the nation (DHS, 2016). There are other ways to do this -- actuarial data could provide estimates about specific disasters that could be rolled into a total budget estimate. However, the DHS and FEMA have chosen the 10-year-moving average to simplify this particular calculation for the budget allotment for disaster relief via the disaster relief fund.

IV. Applicable Laws and Regulations

FEMA was created under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1988, and was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 when that department was created. The Act provided FEMA was the authority to coordinate government-wide relief efforts. FEMA's operational role is thus more oriented towards preparation for disaster relief and coordination of efforts ("About the Agency," 2016). Other parties that contribute to disaster relief are the National Guard, first responders, corporate partners, charities and other NGOs, and other federal government agencies. For example, in the Flint water crisis FEMA plays a support role for Health and Human Services.

Over the years, there have been other acts that influence the mandate and the budgeting for FEMA. The Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act and the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act were both passed to remedy some of the shortcomings of emergency management response to those two particular hurricanes. The latter also made supplemental appropriations in order to bolster the budget of FEMA in order to better assist with Sandy response. It is conceivable that future disasters would also see Congressional action to bolster the FEMA budget, should the financial need for disaster relief exceed the total provided in the disaster relief fund. Thus, FEMA's budget in general is set out in the Stafford Act and the DHS Act, but can be bolstered in times of specific emergencies as Congress sees fit.

FEMA's budget can also be bolstered by executive action. President Carter in 1979 folded a number of agencies into FEMA, for example. This provided the agency with different roles, and FEMA absorbed the budget appropriation mandates from the laws that created the various agencies that it absorbed. Likewise, when FEMA was placed under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, the legal right to appropriations for FEMA was transferred to that department. Today, FEMA continues to receive its funding via DHS by way of the various laws that originally provided funding for FEMA and for the different agencies that were rolled into FEMA under President Carter.

Ultimately, FEMA's legal authority is derived from the….....

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