This morning, the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal
OES) hosted the first in a series of daily webinars to train
local governments on how to apply for Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) Public Assistance. The webinar
specifically focused on federal procurement under FEMA’s
grant standards, which is a requirement of receiving FEMA Public
Assistance to help pay for the cost of responding to the COVID-19
Pandemic.
FEMA’s Public Assistance Program provides supplemental grants to
state, tribal, territorial, and local governments, and certain
types of private non-profits, so that communities can quickly
respond to and recover from major disasters or emergencies.
During the training representatives from Cal OES review FEMA
requirements that local governments must meet in order to receive
Public Assistance. This includes discussing types of contracts,
how to properly document expenses, and reliable resources for
troubleshooting. Two particularly useful guides they highlight
are FEMA’s
Procurement Disaster Assistance Team Field Manual, which
serves as a fairly comprehensive guide to the procurement
process, and a list of the
Top 10 Procurement under Grant Mistakes.
An area which many counties have had questions about, and which
is changing rapidly, is non-congregate sheltering (NCS). In
typical emergencies FEMA does not allow reimbursements for single
occupancy or single family shelters. Given the nature of the
COVID-19 pandemic, FEMA has been granted the ability to approve
requests for NCS, however, current approval in California only
applies to state-run entities. Cal OES is working to expand this
to apply to local bodies, but in the meantime encourage
interested counties to formally request NCS. A template for these
requests is being developed by Cal OES. Please send formal
requests to PAProcurement@CalOES.ca.gov.
The Public Assistance webinars will be hosted every day through
Tuesday April 14, with a morning (10:00 AM-12:00 PM) and an
afternoon session (3:00 PM-5:00 PM). No RSVP is required to join
the presentation, simply click this
link at the time of the session you’d like to join. If you
have any questions on procurement, or if you would like to
receive updates as they happen, send an email to PAProcurement@CalOES.ca.gov.
