By Mary Elizabeth Lonergan
In March, the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), a CSG affiliated organization, is hosting an Emergency Management Virtual Learning Lab series exploring topics selected by NEMA members to address timely issues in emergency management and to address lessons learned over the past year. To view the recordings of these sessions, visit the NEMA YouTube Channel.
The National Emergency Management Association continued their Virtual Learning Labs last week by discussing the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the processes to track, reimburse and provide for communities during the fallout.
“What is your procurement policy,” said Tanya Shannon, Deputy Director at Hagerty Consulting. “The way FEMA works is whatever policy you have in place at the time the disaster started-with COVID that’s January 20, 2020,- is the rule of the game.”
Shannon gave several tips to encouraging leaders to examine purchasing and procurement policies as they are in place during times of disaster.
“I document everything. There’s so many new funding streams being created as we are progressing through this disaster,” she said. “Have a plan.”
Shannon pointed to the changes in policies and funding during the pandemic.
“How is eligibility going to potentially change?” she said.
Shannon said they were able to create various groups and projects to allocate funds. They are then able to easily identify and move funds as needed to ensure they are maximizing funding available.
Meghan Tosto, Deputy Director of Recovery at Hagerty Consulting, said moving recovery forward can be a new challenge.
“How to shift from response to recovery is difficult…,” she said. “It’s challenging to know when; there’s not necessarily a signaling tipping point to know when it’s time to switch gears.
Tosto said having the right team and leadership can make the recovery process easier.“When we identify assistance available, it takes decisive action and decisive leadership to prioritize services that the local government is undertaking and sort through what systems can be brought to bear,” said Ari Renoni, deputy director for Recovery Programs at Hagerty Consulting.
Renoni pointed to the real-life example of the issue of food insecurity in communities brought on by COVID-19.
“When faced with such an imposing problem like widespread food insecurity, the question then becomes for the local government-how do we respond?” he said.
Renoni discussed the difficulty of homebound individuals who were impacted by the inability to go to markets to purchase food.
FEMA created a solution by offering food delivery programs for those that qualified.
Renoni explained options FEMA created for those who lost their income due to COVID-19 and to combat food shortages through pickup points for adults and food reserves.
“All of it requires unified vision, collective community consciousness and strong leadership,” he said of recovery efforts.
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The NEMA Virtual Learning Labs will continue every Tuesday and Thursday until March 25.
To register for upcoming sessions, visit: nemaweb.org/index.php/forums-meetings/nema-webinar-series-march-2021
To view recordings of past events, visit the NEMA YouTube channel: youtube.com/user/NEMAforyou.