FEMA Disaster Contracting
● Page 3 Aug 5, 16, 9:37 AM
FEMA Disaster Contracting
July 28th, 2016, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Attending agencies: City of Sacramento (Marc Robles), Sacramento County (Etienne Ozorak), Placer County (Bret Wood, Jon Manning), Placer County Water Agency (Todd Deacon), Yuba County (Andrea Armstrong), Sutter County (Jeff Rico), City of Vacaville (Keith Miller), Butte County (Debbie), SACOG (Conor Peterson)
Action Items:
1. ALL AGENCIES – Identify internal staff who have experience and are willing to help with federal contracting, grant funding, community development block grants, etc.
2. ALL AGENCIES – Identify and distribute contact information of all staff who may be interested in the areas of discussion (Procurement, OES, administrative)
3. Sacramento County – follow-up with CAPPO training details as they arise for fall training.
4. SACOG - Survey to be distributed asking interest of surrounding agencies.
5. SACOG – Upload all identified documents into a common source such as SACOG’s website or distribute all documents. (In progress will distribute updates before our next meeting)
6. SACOG – Schedule the next meeting (in progress)
Meeting Minutes
1. Shared Services Introduction – Conor Peterson
Over the last several years SACOG has been working to expand their Council of Government’s function in order to provide more direct services to the jurisdictions they serve via Shared Services. The initial interest in Shared Services was to look and work with joint contracting opportunities. The first joint contract established was a joint fuel contract in December of 2014, and SACOG is currently working on a joint Human Resource services contract and looking into other pooled purchasing areas.
Additional shared service opportunities include helping to establish working groups with specific departments or centered on issues or topics of interest. SACOG has established working groups for CIO managers, Regional Managers (City Managers and County Executives), procurement, LUTRAQ (SMAQMD, RT focused on Land Use issues) and more. SACOG has kept their ears open for additional contracting areas and Marc Robles of the City of Sacramento approached SACOG pushing the potential for SACOG to convene a working group to focus on FEMA disaster cost recovery for specific contracts in the face of disaster.
FEMA contracting processes can be extremely complex with their requirements and reporting not allowing for a piggyback style contract but instead requests a "Cooperative" contract with each agency participating throughout the entire drafting and procurement process. SACOG has experience bringing together agencies forming a cooperative contract and is willing to help establish such a group in this case.
2. Cooperative Approach to Disaster Contracting – Marc Robles City of Sacramento
Interest in disaster contracting started when the City of Sacramento attended a training held at the County of Sacramento OES that dove into FEMA and Disaster Contracting for Debris Removal and Monitoring. The training was beyond eye openingfor the City as they realized their contracting process are be ill prepared in the case of a disaster. The whole class left wondering what the next steps were and how each jurisdiction could address the lack of disaster preparedness.
Within the training it was noted a particular jurisdiction had to return nearly 40 million dollarsdue to their lack of adherence to FEMA requirements. During the training they mentioned it was a possible best practice for Regional Consortiums, or agencies like SACOG, to specialize in Federal contracting rulesand try help create a cooperative or regional contract. Considering the City of Sacramento was not the only city who felt ill prepared for disaster, it seemed like the best move to work on creating a cooperative contract that includes as many jurisdictions as possible.
3. Current Approaches to FEMA Disaster Contracting and Debris Removal – Etinne Ozorak County of Sacramento
Etienne first experienced this subject through his time working in Houston where he worked with facility preparedness and dealt with disaster on a more common basis. From there he came to waste management with the County and was requested to develop their disaster debris plan. In order to get a better understanding he was sent to the East coast to do some researchand attended a week long training at the Emergency Management Institute.
After compiling all he has learned, Etienne drafted a debris removal and monitoring contract for Sacramento County Waste Management. This contract hoped to utilize a fellow Council of Governments based in Texas (HGAC) pre-selected vendor approach to disaster contracting. The procurement would follow a two-phase approach with HGAC selected pre-qualified national vendors. The County also included other jurisdictions in their contracting discussions and actually outlined specific agreements with several cities including Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights, Galt, and Folsom through the two-phased approach.
The proposal drafted is mainly tailored towards waste management’s needs and would require areas within the scope. The Counties initial steps could be a good point to start as the group moves forward.
4. Open Discussion and Next Steps (all)
Marc Robles – the City of Sacramento has begun looking internally for staff who have experience working with Federal requirements and guidelines. It is recommended that all agencies identify those in internal staff who have Federal Contracting, Grant Funding, community development block grants, etc.
Butte County experienced disaster in the form of the Cleveland fire. They fires were in 2008 and they had no blanket procurement agreements in place. All contracts formed at the time of the fire were spur of the moment and were unable to completely follow FEMA requirements. They still are without blanket agreements.
Conor (SACOG) - SACOG plans to do some more research taking a look at the HGAC opportunity and plans to upload Disaster Cost Recovery materials to their website under the Shared Services tabulation. Materials to be included are not limited to: an example proposal, HGAC documentation, FEMA contracting working group information and minutes, and information on training opportunities. A survey will also be created a distributed asking for interest in participating in the FEMA Contracting Cooperative.
Craig Rader (Sacramento County) - Hopes to plan another CAPPO training in the fall of 2016. Updates will be distributed as they arise.
Todd Deacon (Placer County Water Agency) – Currently Placer County is without a separate reimbursement policy and they are stuck using their own as compared to defaulting to the state or federal requirements which may allow for more competitive pricing.
Bret Wood (Placer County) – Has integrated state/federal requirements into their purchasing policy allowing them to default to specified requirements in the case of disaster.
All – expressed interest in participating in the cooperative contracting process if it moves forward.
Conor (SACOG) - City of San Francisco has changed their day-to-day tracking of labor, equipment, and materials to match the methods required by FEMA in order to mitigate necessary monitoring changes during a disaster.
5. Next Meeting & Potential Topics for Discussion
· Methods of integrating State/Federal requirements into agency purchasing policies
· Establishing working groups for creation of a FEMA debris removal plan and bids/contracting
· Updates on those interested in participating
· Any other suggested topics