Disaster Relief | The Contracting Education Academy

May 9, 2019 By AMK

FEMA showed weak mastery of contracts during hurricane response and recovery

Four agencies providing disaster relief following the triple hurricanes and California wildfires of 2017 failed to keep proper records of contracts with suppliers, rendering it impractical for the Government Accountability Office to fully track $5 billion in spending.

GAO’s report released on Wednesday examined 23 sample contracts let after the disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard and the Defense Logistics Agency. Its conclusion: the full extent of contracting related to the 2017 disasters is unknown due to Homeland Security Department’s irregular schedule for closing contracts and inconsistent use of standard contracting codes.

Disaster relief contracts for everything from ready-made meals to tarpaulins can be awarded prospectively—before anyone knows the date of a coming act of God—or after the storm or fire has rendered thousands homeless or living in damaged property.

But among the contracts studied as of June 30, 2018—following a record-setting displacement of 15 percent of the U.S. population from several natural events—GAO reviewed the three-fourths of the obligations that were let by FEMA and the Army engineers and found that the Homeland Security Department violated procedure with early closures of what are called national interest action codes. Those numbered codes, administered by the General Services Administration, allow agencies to track data on contract actions related to national emergencies, and are available on the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation to provide governmentwide insight into response and recovery efforts.

Keep reading article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2019/04/fema-showed-weak-mastery-contracts-during-hurricane-response-and-recovery/156541/

January 10, 2019 By AMK

DoD says blockchain can help in disaster relief

The U.S. Department of Defense says blockchain technology has “enormous” potential in helping improve disaster relief efforts.

The Troop Support division of the Defense Logistics Agency held a meeting last month in Philadelphia to understand how blockchain could have helped its already “successful” efforts assisting in Puerto Rico after the devastating Hurricane Maria in 2017. The meeting was hosted by Troop Support’s Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) office.

“The potential is absolutely enormous,” said CPI management analyst Elijah Londo, according to a DLA report of the event. “Talk about blockchain, and you’ll hear experts comparing it to transforming trust or transactions in the same way the internet changed communication.”

Currently, the DLA tracks logistics processes through centrally managed systems, which makes it hard for involved parties to synchronize data and ensure they all are tracking correct and up-to-date information. By using blockchain technology, the agency could track data and thereby improve supply chain transaction processes and in-transit visibility of shipments, it said in the report.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.coindesk.com/us-defense-department-says-blockchain-can-help-disaster-relief

December 10, 2018 By AMK

GAO says FEMA needs to use and manage advance contracts more effectively

Following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Congress required FEMA to establish contracts for goods and services in advance to enable quick and effective mobilization of resources in the aftermath of a disaster.

As a result, the Federal Emergency Management Office (FEMA) and the Army Corps of Engineers used “advance contracts” for $4.5 billion in goods and services after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and the California fires of 2017.

But in new audit report just released, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that FEMA’s guidance on the use of these types of contracts is unclear, and that inconsistent information from FEMA could impair its efforts to help state and local governments use advance contracts.

GAO found limitations in FEMA’s use of some advance contracts that provided critical goods and services to survivors, including:

An outdated strategy and unclear guidance on how contracting officers should use advance contracts during a disaster, and

Challenges performing acquisition planning.

FEMA also did not always provide complete information in its reports to congressional committees. Specifically, GAO found 29 advance contract actions that were not included in recent reports due to shortcomings in FEMA’s reporting methodology, limiting visibility into its disaster contract spending.

FEMA identified challenges with advance contracts in 2017, including federal coordination with states and localities on their use. FEMA is required to coordinate with states and localities and encourage them to establish their own advance contracts with vendors. However, GAO found inconsistencies in that coordination and the information FEMA uses to coordinate with states and localities on advance contracts. Without consistent information and coordination with FEMA, states and localities may not have the tools needed to establish their own advance contracts for critical goods and services and quickly respond to future disasters.

In its new report, GAO made nine recommendations to FEMA, including that it update its strategy and guidance to clarify the use of advance contracts, improve the timeliness of its acquisition planning activities, revise its methodology for reporting disaster contracting actions to congressional committees, and provide more consistent guidance and information to contracting officers to coordinate with and encourage states and localities to establish advance contracts. FEMA concurred with GAO’s recommendations.

See GAO’s full Dec. 7, 2018 report here: https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/695829.pdf

December 5, 2017 By AMK

Top FEMA official: Hit the ‘reset button’ on disaster recovery roles

State and local governments should own the disaster recovery process by creating integrated, outcome-based mitigation plans like Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator said Thursday at a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.

To that end, Brock Long asked the House Appropriations Committee for additional authority in FEMA’s third supplemental request for $44 billion to go beyond simply rebuilding communities to pre-disaster standards, per the Stafford Act, and address resiliency.

Too often FEMA finds itself in the role of first responder and even the only responder, Long said, as was the case in Puerto Rico, which faces massive amounts of deferred maintenance on antiquated infrastructure and its energy grid in particular. The average age of power plants in the U.S. commonwealth is 44 years, compared to the national average of 18.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.routefifty.com/public-safety/2017/11/fema-brock-long-congress/144205/

July 26, 2011 By AMK

Homeland Security relying more on fixed-price contracts, report says

The share of Homeland Security Department contracts that fulfill the Obama administration’s preference for fixed-price awards rose steadily over the past four years to reach 10.3 percent, or $7.5 billion in fiscal 2010, a new think tank study reports.

That rise followed an earlier hike in dependence on time-and-materials or cost-reimbursement contracts in the wake of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Its study, “DHS Contract Spending and the Supporting Industrial Base,” released Thursday, analyzed federal data from from fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2010, dealing primarily with service contracts. It incorporated input from DHS officials.

Homeland Security’s move toward fixed-price awards coincided with reduced use of purchase orders and contracts awarded without competition, the report noted. David Berteau, the project’s director who runs CSIS’ defense-industrial initiatives group, applauded efforts by the Office of Management and Budget to “require agencies for the first time to use the Federal Procurement Data System as a management tool to track improvements and enhance competition.”

The report also noted a doubling in the use of multiple-contract awards at Homeland Security and a 10.6 percent yearly decline in single-contract awards. “Multiple awards not only help create competition,” Berteau said, “they help the agency decide what it is seeking in the contract’s requirements.” The value of contracts awarded without competition shrunk from a high of $7 billion in 2006 to $1.6 billion in 2010, the report said.

Homeland Security has been successfully adhering to Small Business Administration guidelines for awarding contracts to small firms. “Unlike the Defense Department, which has a growing share going to large companies, DHS has a broad diversity of companies, which also emphasizes competition,” Berteau said.

The agency controls about half the contracts dealing with homeland security, with the Pentagon running a quarter and the remainder coming out of the Justice, State, Energy and Health and Human Services departments.

The portion of contracts run out of the Office of the Secretary at Homeland Security rose 900 percent and in 2010 accounted for the largest share of contract spending, the report noted. The bulk of this increase reflects the recent transfer of the Federal Protective Service, which supervises many private contractors, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Homeland Security’s Office of Procurement Operations, within the secretary’s office, the report said. Berteau said the growth is not necessarily a reflection of the management approach of Homeland Security leadership.

The report’s list of the top 20 Homeland Security contractors indicated a flip in priorities, noted project co-director Guy Ben-Ari. “It shows the dynamic nature of DHS contracting, with less emphasis today on disaster response and more on the rise of IT and defense awards,” he said.

In 2005, the top five DHS contracting companies were Circle B, Integrated Coast Guard Systems, Fairmont Homes, Unisys and Graham. In 2010, the top five in were IBM, Lockheed Martin, Integrated Coast Guard Systems, Unisys and Accenture.

Established in 2002, Homeland Security is the only national security agency whose budget was not significantly increased in the years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Berteau said. Hence Homeland Security planners must remain aware that they don’t have “the same cushion for the looming drawdown” in federal spending as do other agencies.

— by Charles S. Clark – GovExec.com – July 21, 2011 – at http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=48312&printerfriendlyvers=1

Four agencies providing disaster relief following the triple hurricanes and California wildfires of 2017 failed to keep proper records of contracts with suppliers, rendering it impractical for the Government Accountability Office to fully track $5 billion in spending.

The U.S. Department of Defense says blockchain technology has “enormous” potential in helping improve disaster relief efforts.

Following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, Congress required FEMA to establish contracts for goods and services in advance to enable quick and effective mobilization of resources in the aftermath of a disaster.

State and local governments should own the disaster recovery process by creating integrated, outcome-based mitigation plans like Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator said Thursday at a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.

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