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Open Recommendations (47 total)

Flood Insurance: FEMA Needs to Address Data Quality and Consider Company Characteristics When Revising Its Compensation Methodology

GAO-17-36
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency To improve the transparency and accountability over the compensation paid to WYO companies and set appropriate compensation rates, the FEMA administrator should take into account WYO company characteristics that may impact companies' expenses and profits when developing the new compensation methodology and rates.
Open
According to FEMA officials, FEMA planned to respond to this recommendation as part of its development of a final rule on WYO compensation practices, required by the Biggert-Waters Act. FEMA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on July 8, 2019 seeking comments by September 6, 2019 regarding possible approaches to incorporate actual flood expense data into the WYO payment methodology. As of February 2021, FEMA officials completed reviewing comments received in response to the July 2019 notice and concluded that they needed to reassess their approach to compensating WYO insurers. In April 2021, FEMA officials explained that they had established goals, outputs, and milestones related to analyzing various aspects of WYO compensation as part of a three-pronged effort that included the drafting of a procedures manual for determining WYO insurer profit margins based on reported expense data and conducting a comprehensive study of WYO compensation. As of January 2022, FEMA had issued a contract to examine the accuracy, completeness, limitations and utility of actual flood expense data and provide options for how this data might inform a new compensation methodology for WYO insurers and selling agents and brokers. The study has since been completed and FEMA completed its internal review in September 2023. According to FEMA officials, workgroups comprised of specialists across various branches of its Federal Insurance Directorate (FID) have been formed as of March 2024 to complete the research, analysis, and policy deliberations on the various elements of WYO compensation. As part of these ongoing efforts, FID is considering how differing company characteristics should factor into its compensation methodology, including differing distribution models and vendor relationships.

Disaster Assistance: Actions Needed to Strengthen FEMA's Housing Inspections Process

GAO-23-104750
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency The FEMA Administrator should develop and implement a strategy to ensure that contracted housing inspectors have the resources needed, including providing official tablets and ensuring contracted housing inspectors have email addresses, to carry out housing inspections and communicate with applicants. (Recommendation 7)
Open
In April 2023, FEMA officials provided an update stating that FEMA has about 4,900 official tablets available for contracted housing inspectors to use during their housing inspections, as of March 2023. According to the officials, FEMA also verbally communicated and reiterated to both of its IHP housing inspection contractors that the use of nongovernment issued email is not permitted for communicating with IHP applicants. Additionally, FEMA delivered official written notice prohibiting this practice to both contractors in March 2023. As of June 2023, GAO is awaiting documentation from FEMA showing that it has incorporated a strategy to ensure that contracted IHP housing inspectors have the resources to communicate with applicants.

Disaster Recovery: Additional Actions Needed to Identify and Address Potential Recovery Barriers

GAO-22-104039
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Priority Rec.
The FEMA Administrator should, in coordination with the SBA Associate Administrator of the Office of Disaster Assistance and the HUD Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development, develop, with input from key recovery partners, and implement an interagency plan to help ensure the availability and use of quality information that includes (1) information requirements, (2) data sources and methods, and (3) strategies for overcoming information challenges—to support federal agencies involved in disaster recovery in identifying access barriers or disparate outcomes. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In February 2024, FEMA officials told us that FEMA, together with HUD and SBA, are developing an interagency plan for data collection, sharing, and analysis to identify potential equity issues. According to FEMA, this interagency plan will be developed by June 2024. They also noted that in November 2023, FEMA completed Privacy Threshold Analyses needed for FEMA to share certain aggregate applicant data with HUD and SBA to help all 3 agencies identify potential access barriers. However, to fully address the recommendation and ensure the availability and use of quality information needed to identify access barriers and disparate outcomes, FEMA (with HUD and SBA) will need to both develop and implement this interagency plan specifying the data needed, the sources of those data, and the methods for obtaining those data. Without implementing a plan to ensure the availability of comprehensive information, programs lack a means to identify potential social and institutional barriers in their own programs and across programs.

Homeland Security Grants: DHS Implemented National Priority Areas but Could Better Document and Communicate Changes

GAO-24-106327
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency The FEMA Administrator should conduct targeted outreach to stakeholders to better understand and address communication and other stakeholder challenges with implementing National Priority Area changes. (Recommendation 2).
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

FEMA Workforce: Additional Actions Needed to Help Prevent and Respond to Discrimination and Harassment

GAO-23-105243
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency The FEMA Administrator should implement a process, using the data on time frames for key steps, to regularly assess and take action to improve the timeliness of key steps in the harassment complaint adjudication process. (Recommendation 7)
Open
DHS concurred with this recommendation and said it would take steps to implement it. According to FEMA officials, in February 2022, FEMA awarded a contract for a new Labor Employee Relations case management system. Officials said that this new system is undergoing internal testing, and once the system is configured and in use, FEMA will use the system to monitor processing time frames for resolution of harassment complaints. FEMA estimates the system will be in use by the end of 2023, and FEMA will then begin collecting data, identifying trends, and determining whether additional actions are needed.

Disaster Recovery: Actions Needed to Improve the Federal Approach

GAO-23-104956
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Priority Rec.
The FEMA Administrator should, in consultation with the Recovery Support Function Leadership Group, identify and take steps to better manage fragmentation between its disaster recovery programs and other federal programs, including consideration of the options identified in this report. If FEMA determines that it needs authority for actions that it seeks to implement, it should request that authority from Congress. (Recommendation 1)
Open
DHS agreed with this recommendation. As of February 2024, FEMA officials stated that they were continuing to work with the White House and senior executives across the federal government through an Interagency Policy Committee and the Recovery Support Function Leadership Group (RSFLG) to consider options to improve disaster recovery, including those identified by GAO. For example, FEMA has worked with SBA, HUD, OMB and other interagency partners to explore the viability of a single disaster assistance application, aligned with one of the options identified by GAO. As of February 2024, FEMA officials told us they were working with HUD to determine a path forward for HUD to be the inaugural partner in a consolidated application for individual disaster assistance. FEMA officials stated that they were not able to identify an approach for a consolidated application with SBA, but they were working together toward improved sharing of common applicant data elements and a "no wrong door" approach. According to FEMA officials, this approach would ensure that disaster survivors who could benefit from working with both agencies are fully aware of the types of assistance available to them and are appropriately guided directly into each Agency's intake process with their common data. FEMA's work through the Interagency Policy Committee, RSFLG, and directly with HUD and SBA on the possibility of a common application could help FEMA identify and take steps to better manage fragmentation between FEMA's disaster recovery programs and other federal programs, including consideration of the options in this report. To fully address this recommendation, FEMA will need to demonstrate that it has worked with interagency partners and thoroughly considered available options, identified those FEMA intends to implement, and then take steps to do so. By taking these steps, FEMA could improve service delivery to disaster survivors and communities; and improve the effectiveness of recovery efforts.

Disaster Recovery: Additional Actions Needed to Identify and Address Potential Recovery Barriers

GAO-22-104039
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Priority Rec.
The FEMA Administrator should coordinate with the SBA Associate Administrator of the Office of Disaster Assistance and the HUD Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development to design and establish routine processes to be used within and across federal disaster recovery programs to address identified access barriers and disparate outcomes on an ongoing basis. (Recommendation 2)
Open
In February 2024, FEMA officials told us that FEMA, together with HUD and SBA, are developing an interagency plan that includes a description of routine processes that they will use to address any equity issues they identify. According to FEMA, this interagency plan will be developed by June 2024. For its part, FEMA officials stated that they anticipate addressing the identified access barriers through targeted capacity-building support, including: training, peer-to-peer network development, recovery planning, and technical assistance support to low-capacity, highly impacted local and tribal governments with high vulnerability indicators to position these governments to better manage recovery efforts. However, to fully address the recommendation, FEMA (with HUD and SBA) must also implement institutionalized processes to be used within and across federal recovery programs to address identified access barriers and disparate outcomes on an ongoing basis. Without routine processes, disaster recovery programs lack a mechanism to ensure they can address any potential access barriers or disparate outcomes they might identify, particularly if the cause of those barriers or outcomes arise from the interaction between or among programs.

Justice40: Additional Efforts Needed to Improve Tribal Applicants' Access to Federal Programs Under Environmental Justice Initiative

GAO-24-106511
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency The Administrator of FEMA should ensure that program offices of FEMA Justice40 covered programs document previously identified statutory and regulatory barriers to access for tribal applicants informing their implementation of the Justice40 Initiative. As a part of this process, the agency should—with input from Tribes—identify any additional changes necessary to address remaining statutory and regulatory barriers, recommending legislative changes where the agency determines appropriate. The agency should make a summary of the results of this process publicly available. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

FEMA Workforce: Additional Actions Needed to Help Prevent and Respond to Discrimination and Harassment

GAO-23-105243
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency The FEMA Administrator should take steps to mitigate the harassment risk factors in FEMA's workplace. (Recommendation 10)
Open
DHS concurred with this recommendation and said it would take steps to implement it. In response to another recommendation (Recommendation 9), FEMA has identified harassment risk factors. We will continue to follow-up with FEMA on steps it is taking to mitigate each of the identified risk factors.

Justice40: Additional Efforts Needed to Improve Tribal Applicants' Access to Federal Programs Under Environmental Justice Initiative

GAO-24-106511
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Federal Emergency Management Agency The Administrator of FEMA should ensure that program offices implementing Justice40 covered programs maintain records of related consultations with Tribes and consider—with tribal input—publicly sharing a high-level summary of consultation results, as appropriate, to improve tribal applicants' access to information about tribal input on federal programs and decrease the burden on Tribes and eligible Indigenous communities. (Recommendation 5)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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