Donations / Volunteers – Offsetting Local Disaster Costs
Background
FEMA allows sub-grantees (city / town) to utilize volunteer time and donated resources to offset the local disaster cost share (normally 25%) up to 100% of the disaster costs. For example if disaster costs a municipality $100,000 and there is a federal cost share of 75%, the municipality can only claim up to a maximum of $25,000 of volunteer time and donated resources.
How to Seek Funding
The following link describes the FEMA Public Assistance Process:
It provides a good general overview of how the process works and what to expect.
When it comes to seeking a cost share for volunteer time or donated goods, the applicant should value those donations at what it would cost the municipality to provide or procure a similar service.
For Example:If the local coffee shop donates coffee and pastries to the EDS, the city / town can claim the retail costs for those, assuming applicable documentation, and not the wholesale rate because the city / town would have to pay retail for those good.
This can also be applied to labor.
For Example: If the city / town has an all-volunteer fire department, they can use the Massachusetts State Labor Rates’ median rate for a firefighter ($25.34 per hour) and applicable fringe benefits (usually using the police department’s worker’s compensation insurance percentage and the percentage of city / town support to the individual’s retirement along with FICA/MICA to arrive at a benefit rate) to derive and apply a value for that labor.
The calculation would look something like this: Median Hourly Rate $25.34 per hour plus 11% workers compensation, 7.65% FICA/MICA and 15% retirement benefits would cause the overall value of the labor to increase from $25.34 to $33.86 when a 33.65% total benefit percentage is applied.
The reason the $33.86 rate can be used is because if the volunteer labor wasn’t there, that’s what the municipality would be reasonably expected to spend that amount for a full time employee.
Access the Massachusetts State Labor Rates at: lmi2.detma.org/lmi/lmi_oes_a.asp
The only catch is that the volunteer labor must be performing the labor being claimed. Therefore a volunteer firefighter must be performing fire service responsibilities (fire suppression, rescue, EMT) and not handing out hot meals. If they are handing out hot meals, their time can still be claimed, but at a more modest rate, generally $12 per hour in FEMA Region 1).
Conclusion
Claiming volunteer time and donated resources can provide a valuable offset to a disaster costs. Each city / town should ensure that they have policies and procedures in place to track these valuable assets.
Governing FEMA Policies
44 CFR 13.24 (c) (1):
FEMA Recovery Policy 9525.2:
Region 2 Public Health Emergency Preparedness Coalition –