[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


        FEMA: BUILDING A WORKFORCE PREPARED AND READY TO RESPOND

=======================================================================

                             JOINT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                        EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS,
                         RESPONSE, AND RECOVERY

                                AND THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                         OVERSIGHT, MANAGEMENT,
                           AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                            JANUARY 20, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-40

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
                                     

[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                     

       Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov/

                               __________
                               
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
47-276 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
                                  
                               
                               

                     COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

               Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi, Chairman
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas            John Katko, New York
James R. Langevin, Rhode Island      Michael T. McCaul, Texas
Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey     Clay Higgins, Louisiana
J. Luis Correa, California           Michael Guest, Mississippi
Elissa Slotkin, Michigan             Dan Bishop, North Carolina
Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri            Jefferson Van Drew, New Jersey
Al Green, Texas                      Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Yvette D. Clarke, New York           Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
Eric Swalwell, California            Diana Harshbarger, Tennessee
Dina Titus, Nevada                   Andrew S. Clyde, Georgia
Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey    Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida
Kathleen M. Rice, New York           Jake LaTurner, Kansas
Val Butler Demings, Florida          Peter Meijer, Michigan
Nanette Diaz Barragan, California    Kat Cammack, Florida
Josh Gottheimer, New Jersey          August Pfluger, Texas
Elaine G. Luria, Virginia            Andrew R. Garbarino, New York
Tom Malinowski, New Jersey
Ritchie Torres, New York
                       Hope Goins, Staff Director
                 Daniel Kroese, Minority Staff Director
                          Natalie Nixon, Clerk
                                 
                                 
                                 ------                                

     SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE, AND RECOVERY

                Val Butler Demings, Florida, Chairwoman
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas            Kat Cammack, Florida, Ranking 
Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey         Member
Al Green, Texas                      Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Bonnie Watson Coleman, New Jersey    Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi (ex  Andrew R. Garbarino, New York
    officio)                         John Katko, New York (ex officio)
              Lauren McClain, Subcommittee Staff Director
          Diana Bergwin, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
                    Aaron Greene, Subcommittee Clerk
                                 
                                 ------                                

       SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, MANAGEMENT, AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                  J. Luis Correa, California, Chairman
Dina Titus, Nevada                   Peter Meijer, Michigan, Ranking 
Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey         Member
Ritchie Torres, New York             Dan Bishop, North Carolina
Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi (ex  Diana Harshbarger, Tennessee
    officio)                         John Katko, New York (ex officio)
                Lisa Canini, Subcommittee Staff Director
         Eric Heighberger, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
                  Geremiah Lofton, Subcommittee Clerk
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               Statements

The Honorable Val Butler Demings, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Florida, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on 
  Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery:
  Oral Statement.................................................     1
  Prepared Statement.............................................     2
The Honorable Kat Cammack, a Representative in Congress From the 
  State of Florida, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Emergency 
  Preparedness, Response, and Recovery:
  Oral Statement.................................................     3
  Prepared Statement.............................................     5
The Honorable J. Luis Correa, a Representative in Congress From 
  the State of California, and Chairman, Subcommittee on 
  Oversight, Management, and Accountability:
  Oral Statement.................................................     6
  Prepared Statement.............................................     7
The Honorable Peter Meijer, a Representative in Congress From the 
  State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 
  Oversight, Management, and Accountability:
  Oral Statement.................................................     8
  Prepared Statement.............................................     9
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Mississippi, and Chairman, Committee on 
  Homeland Security:
  Prepared Statement.............................................    10

                               Witnesses

Mr. W. Craig Fugate, Former Administrator, Federal Emergency 
  Management Agency:
  Oral Statement.................................................    12
  Prepared Statement.............................................    13
Mr. Christopher P. Currie, Director, Homeland Security And 
  Justice Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office:
  Oral Statement.................................................    16
  Prepared Statement.............................................    18
Ms. Carra S. Sims, Senior Behavioral and Social Scientist, The 
  Rand Corporation:
  Oral Statement.................................................    25
  Prepared Statement.............................................    27

                             For the Record

The Honorable Val Butler Demings, a Representative in Congress 
  From the State of Florida, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on 
  Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery:
  Letter From the American Federation of Government Employees, 
    AFL-CIO (AFGE)...............................................    42

                                Appendix

Questions From Ranking Member John Katko for W. Craig Fugate.....    47
Question From Honorable Diana Harshbarger for W. Craig Fugate....    48
Questions From Honorable Peter Meijer for W. Craig Fugate........    48
Questions from Chairwoman Val Demings for Christopher P. Currie..    48
Questions From Honorable Dina Titus for Christopher P. Currie....    49
Questions From Ranking Member John Katko for Christopher P. 
  Currie.........................................................    50
Question From Honorable Diana Harshbarger for Christopher P. 
  Currie.........................................................    53
Questions From Honorable Peter Meijer for Christopher P. Currie..    54
Question From Chairwoman Val Demings for Carra S. Sims...........    55
Questions From Ranking Member John Katko for Carra S. Sims.......    55
Question From Honorable Diana Harshbarger for Carra S. Sims......    61
Question From Honorable Peter Meijer for Carra S. Sims...........    61

 
        FEMA: BUILDING A WORKFORCE PREPARED AND READY TO RESPOND

                              ----------                              


                       Thursday, January 20, 2022

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                    Committee on Homeland Security,
     Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and 
                                          Recovery, and the
 Subcommittee on Oversight, Management, and Accountability,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., 
via Webex, Hon. Val Butler Demings [Chairwoman of the 
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery] 
presiding.
    Present from the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, 
Response, and Recovery: Representatives Demings, Jackson Lee, 
Payne, Cammack, Higgins, Miller-Meeks, and Garbarino.
    Present from the Subcommittee on Oversight, Management, and 
Accountability: Representatives Correa, Titus, Meijer, Bishop, 
and Harshbarger.
    Chairwoman Demings. The Subcommittees on Emergency 
Preparedness, Response, and Recovery and Oversight, Management, 
and Accountability will come to order. Without objection, the 
Chair is authorized to declare the subcommittees in recess at 
any point. Good morning to everyone and thank you all so much 
for joining us today.
    We are here to discuss the Federal Emergency Management 
Agency, FEMA, its work force. This topic is incredibly timely 
given the tornadoes that struck southwest Florida Sunday 
morning, destroying dozens of homes and leaving thousands 
without power in Lee and Charlotte Counties. My thoughts are 
with the families and we are committed to supporting their 
communities as they recover. I am grateful that FEMA is already 
on the ground assisting with the damage assessments necessary 
for Federal assistance. Thank you, Chairman Correa and Ranking 
Member Meijer for joining Ranking Member Cammack and me for 
this important hearing.
    I want to begin today's hearing by thanking the FEMA work 
force for the job that they do every day. As an agency, they 
have worked nonstop to help those in need. I have witnessed 
FEMA come to the aid of hurting Floridians, and I am 
tremendously grateful for their service.
    I don't think that is something FEMA can help us with, but 
we are going to continue our meeting. Can everyone hear me OK?
    Chairman Correa. Yes, yes.
    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you. Thank you all so much. 
Representative Correa, I will just pick up where I left off. 
Last weekend, the hostage situation in Colleyville, Texas 
reminded us all just how important these grant programs are in 
addressing terrorist attacks and how much we rely on the FEMA 
work force to keep our communities safe. The demand on FEMA's 
work force is already immense and it will only grow due to the 
frequency and intensity of natural disasters that are predicted 
to increase with climate change.
    To put things into perspective, the average number of major 
disaster declarations issued from 1960 to 1969 were roughly 18 
per year. In contrast, in 2020, FEMA responded to a record 104 
major disaster declarations. In 2021, FEMA responded to 58 
major disaster declarations. While FEMA has responded to 
disaster-assisted missions over the years, an increasing 
workload has contributed to work force challenges related to 
hiring, training, and retention.
    After the record-breaking 2017 hurricanes, the Government 
Accountability Office found that FEMA faced challenges in 
training employees and maintaining staffing levels across four 
concurrent disasters, which hindered the Agency's response. 
Furthermore, in 2020, more FEMA workers transferred to other 
agencies than in any other year over the past decade. This mass 
exit may be attributed to the workload. Past employees have 
described working 12-hour days and having little--not having 
enough time in between to recover between assignments.
    FEMA's work force is suffering from an increase in burnout 
and it is crucial that FEMA address these concerns and 
prioritize its work force and their needs.
    Additionally, I am worried about the agency's lack of 
diversity especially within its leadership roles. Only 24 
percent of FEMA's senior executive service employees identified 
as minorities, and 31 percent identified as female. Having a 
diverse work force, as we all know, is critical to providing 
equitable and comprehensive disaster assistance.
    I am glad to see the Biden administration invest in FEMA's 
work force and for release of the 2022 to 2026 FEMA Strategic 
Plan that establishes three overarching goals for the next 5 
years, improving equity in emergency management, leading the 
field in climate resilience, and ensuring FEMA is ready to 
respond to the many tasks the agency is assigned.
    It is with sincere gratitude that I welcome our witnesses 
here today. I look forward to hearing your perspectives on 
FEMA's work force and what Congress can do to better support 
them moving forward. The Ranking Member has joined us. The 
Chair will now recognize the Ranking Member from the Emergency 
Preparedness, Response, and Recovery Subcommittee, the 
gentlewoman from Florida, Mrs. Cammack, for an opening 
statement.
    [The statement of Chairwoman Demings follows:]
                  Statement of Chairwoman Val Demings
                            January 20, 2022
    We are here to discuss the Federal Emergency Management Agency's 
(FEMA) workforce. This topic is incredibly timely, given the tornadoes 
that struck southwest Florida Sunday morning, destroying dozens of 
homes and leaving thousands without power in Lee and Charlotte 
Counties. I offer my deepest sympathies for the Floridians who were 
impacted and am committed to supporting their communities as they 
recover. I am grateful that FEMA is already on the ground, assisting 
with the damage assessments necessary for Federal assistance.
    Thank you, Chairman Correa and Ranking Member Meijer for joining 
Ranking Member Cammack and me for this important hearing. I want to 
begin today's hearing by thanking the FEMA workforce for the job they 
do every day. As an agency, they have worked nonstop to help those in 
need. I have witnessed FEMA come to the aid of hurting Floridians and I 
am tremendously grateful for their service. Over the years, FEMA has 
responded to disasters, including multiple, simultaneous large-scale 
disasters, and supported other Federal agencies with their missions. 
Notably, FEMA continues to carry out critical parts of the Federal 
response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
    FEMA's workforce plays a crucial role in protecting our communities 
from terrorism through the administration of the Department of Homeland 
Security Preparedness Grants, which includes funding for the Nonprofit 
Security Grant Program. Last weekend, the hostage situation in 
Colleyville, Texas reminded us of just how important these grant 
programs are in addressing terrorist attacks and how much we rely on 
the FEMA workforce to keep our communities safe.
    The demand on FEMA's workforce is already immense, and it will only 
grow due to the frequency and intensity of natural disasters that are 
predicted to increase with climate change. To put things into 
perspective, the average number of major disaster declarations issued 
from 1960 to 1969 was roughly 18 per year. In contrast, in 2020, FEMA 
responded to a record 104 major disaster declarations and in 2021, FEMA 
responded to 58 major disaster declarations.
    While FEMA has responded to disaster assistance missions over the 
years, an increasing workload has contributed to workforce challenges 
related to hiring, training, and retention. After the record-breaking 
2017 hurricanes, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 
FEMA faced challenges in training employees and maintaining staffing 
levels across 4 concurrent disasters, which hindered the agency's 
response. Furthermore, in 2020, more FEMA workers transferred to other 
agencies than in any other year over the past decade. This mass exit 
may be attributed to the workload; past employees have described 
working 12-hour days and not having enough time to recover between 
assignments. FEMA's workforce is suffering from an increase in burnout, 
and it is crucial that FEMA address these concerns and prioritize its 
workforce and their needs.
    Additionally, I am worried about the agency's lack of diversity 
especially within its leadership roles. Only 24 percent of FEMA's 
Senior Executive Service employees identified as minorities and 31 
percent identified as female. Having a diverse workforce is critical to 
providing equitable and comprehensive disaster assistance. I commend 
the Biden administration for investing in FEMA's workforce and for 
releasing the 2022-2026 FEMA Strategic Plan which establishes 3 
overarching goals for the next 5 years: Improving equity in emergency 
management, leading the field of climate resilience, and ensuring FEMA 
is ready to respond to the many tasks the agency is assigned.
    It is with sincere gratitude that I welcome our witnesses here 
today. I look forward to hearing your perspectives on FEMA's workforce 
and what Congress can do to better support them moving forward.

    Mrs. Cammack. Well, thank you, Chairwoman Demings and 
Chairman Correa for holding this important hearing today. There 
is a saying in the business world, a company is only as good as 
its employees. This can apply most places and it certainly 
applies to FEMA, whose vital mission is help people before, 
during, and after disasters. Now, when people think of FEMA, 
images are conjured of flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, the 
devastation of an entire town like we sadly witnessed in 
southwest Kentucky.
    However, in recent years, FEMA's mission sets have grown. 
In March 2020, when President Trump declared a Nation-wide 
emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, FEMA took a lead role 
in our Nation's response. In March 2021, FEMA was tasked with 
providing operational support to the Department of Health and 
Human Services with unaccompanied children crossing the border. 
Most recently in August and September of last year, FEMA 
assisted in the Afghan refugee resettlement efforts.
    Now, while FEMA employees are incredibly capable and 
resilient, I am concerned that these multiple mission sets are 
exhausting the work force. This sentiment was echoed during 
FEMA Administrator Criswell's first all-hands meeting where she 
identified employee burnout as a major issue. According to 
FEMA's 2021 Preparedness Report, ``When multiple large-scale 
incidents require simultaneous support . . . State and Federal 
capability may be strained, reducing capacity to on-going 
recovery efforts and to respond to additional incidents.'' The 
report states that there are, ``More disaster declarations open 
at the end of 2020 than at any other point since 1953, when 
data collection began.''
    Now, currently, the agency is responding to 77 
Presidentially-declared disasters.
    While employee fatigue poses extraordinary challenges at 
FEMA, a recent report by the GAO highlighted that, ``Disaster 
personnel experienced significant limitations with 
qualification status matching performance in the field.'' 
Meaning that staff members who were qualified in FEMA's 
qualification system, the system that tracks the training and 
performance requirements for disaster work force positions, did 
not have the skills or experience to effectively perform their 
positions in the field. The GAO additionally found that FEMA's 
disaster work force ``encountered challenges related to the 
availability of courses, providing and receiving on the job 
training and mentoring, and consistently receiving performance 
evaluations.''
    Now, these major shortcomings hinder staff development 
necessary to increasing the skills and competencies needed 
during these critical deployments. The GAO made three 
recommendations to FEMA including developing a plan to address 
the challenges that have hindered FEMA's ability to provide 
reliable and complete information to field leaders and managers 
about staff knowledge, skills, and abilities, (2) develop 
mechanisms to assess how effectively FEMA's disaster work force 
was deployed to meet mission needs in the field, and (3) create 
a staff development program for FEMA's disaster work force.
    Further, due to allegations of misconduct at the agency in 
2019, FEMA requested a study be conducted on harassment and 
discrimination in the FEMA workplace. The RAND Corporation 
managed a survey to, ``Designed to estimate the annual 
prevalence of workplace harassment and discrimination at FEMA 
and to assess employee perceptions of leadership and work force 
climate.'' Of the personnel that completed the survey, about 29 
percent of employees experienced sex-, race-, or ethnicity-
based discrimination. As a result of the study, FEMA published 
their culture improvement action plan designed to increase 
employee awareness of the RAND survey results, provide 
transparent communication of work force culture objectives, 
programs, and improvement, and associated implementation time 
lines.
    It is my understanding that RAND has conducted a second 
survey. I look forward to learning of those results and hope 
that the agency culture has improved.
    With all the aforementioned challenges, employee fatigue, 
barriers to training, lacking necessary skills in the field, 
and prevalence of harassment and discrimination in the 
workplace, is the FEMA work force prepared and well-positioned 
to respond to the disasters when needed? I certainly hope so. I 
look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on their 
perspectives on these challenges and what steps the agency 
should take to move forward in a positive way.
    Now, before I yield back, I do want to take a moment to 
thank all of our incredible hard-working dedicated men and 
women at FEMA. You guys have a tough job. We are so grateful 
for the extraordinary work that you do. I don't believe that 
you all are recognized or thanked enough. So, with that, I 
would like to yield back to Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so 
much and I look forward to the testimony here today.
    [The statement of Ranking Member Cammack follows:]
                Statement of Ranking Member Kat Cammack
    Thank you, Chairwoman Demings and Chairman Correa for holding this 
important hearing today.
    There's a saying in the business world, ``a company is only as good 
as its employees.'' This can apply most places and certainly applies to 
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), whose vital mission is 
to help people before, during, and after disasters.
    When people think of FEMA, images are conjured of flooding, 
hurricanes, or the devastation of an entire town, like we sadly 
recently witnessed in southwest Kentucky. However, in recent years, 
FEMA's mission sets have grown.
    In March 2020, when President Trump declared a Nation-wide 
emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic, FEMA took a lead role in our 
Nation's response. In March 2021, FEMA was tasked with providing 
operational support to the Department of Health and Human Services with 
unaccompanied children crossing the border. Most recently, in August/
September of last year, FEMA assisted in the Afghan refugee 
resettlement efforts.
    While FEMA employees are incredibly capable and resilient, I am 
concerned that these multiple mission sets are exhausting the 
workforce. This sentiment was echoed during FEMA Administrator 
Criswell's first all-hands meeting where she identified employee burn-
out as a major issue.
    According to FEMA's 2021 Preparedness Report, ``When multiple 
large-scale incidents require simultaneous support . . . State and 
Federal capability may be strained, reducing capacity to on-going 
recovery efforts and to respond to additional incidents.'' The report 
states that ``there were more disaster declarations open at the end of 
2020 than at any other point since 1953, when data collection began.'' 
Currently, the agency is responding to 77 Presidentially-declared 
disasters.
    While employee fatigue poses extraordinary challenges at FEMA, a 
recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) 
highlighted that ``disaster personnel experienced significant 
limitations with qualification status matching performance in the 
field.'' Meaning that staff members who were qualified in the FEMA 
Qualification System, the system that tracks training and performance 
requirements for disaster workforce positions, did not have the skills 
or experience to effectively perform their positions in the field. The 
GAO additionally found that FEMA's disaster workforce ``encountered 
challenges related to the availability of courses, providing and 
receiving on-the-job training and mentoring, and consistently receiving 
performance evaluations.'' These major shortcomings hindered staff 
development necessary to increasing the skills and competencies needed 
during deployments.
    The GAO made three recommendations to FEMA including: Develop a 
plan to address the challenges that have hindered FEMA's ability to 
provide reliable and complete information to field leaders and managers 
about staff knowledge, skills, and abilities; develop mechanisms to 
assess how effectively FEMA's disaster workforce was deployed to meet 
mission needs in the field; and create a staff development program for 
FEMA's disaster workforce.
    Further, due to allegations of misconduct at the agency, in 2019, 
FEMA requested a study be conducted on harassment and discrimination in 
the FEMA workplace. The RAND Corporation managed a survey ``designed to 
estimate the annual prevalence of workplace harassment and 
discrimination at FEMA and to assess employee perceptions of leadership 
and workplace climate.''
    Of the personnel that completed the survey, about 29 percent of 
employees experienced sex-, race-, or ethnicity-based discrimination. 
As a result of the study, FEMA published their ``Culture Improvement 
Action Plan'' designed to increase employee awareness of RAND survey 
results; Provide transparent communication of workforce culture 
objectives, programs, and improvements and associated implementation 
time lines; and, Demonstrate continued leadership commitment to FEMA 
core values.
    It is my understanding that RAND has conducted a second survey. I 
look forward to learning of those results and hope that culture at the 
agency has improved.
    With all these aforementioned challenges--employee fatigue, 
barriers to training, lacking necessary skills in the field, and the 
prevalence of harassment and discrimination in the workplace--is the 
FEMA workforce prepared and well-positioned to respond to disasters 
when needed?
    I certainly hope so, and I look forward to hearing from our 
witnesses today on their perspectives on these challenges, and what 
steps should the agency take to move forward positively.
    Before I yield back, I do want to take a moment to thank all the 
incredible, hardworking, and dedicated men and women at FEMA. We are so 
grateful for the extraordinary work that you do, and I don't believe 
you all are thanked enough.
    With that, thank you Chairwoman Demings, and I yield back.

    Chairwoman Demings. I thank the Ranking Member and I know 
my video feed cut out earlier but one part, a very important 
part of this hearing is to acknowledge the amazing job. I hope 
that at least that part got through to acknowledge the amazing 
job that the men and women of FEMA do every day and we are so 
appreciative for their service.
    The Chair now recognizes the Chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Oversight Management and Accountability, the gentleman from 
the California, Mr. Correa, for an opening statement.
    Chairman Correa. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I join you, 
Chairwoman Demings and Ranking Member Cammack, in also thanking 
FEMA for the good work you do for Americans and for others all 
over the world. Again, Chairwoman Demings, thank you for 
holding this hearing as well as my Ranking Member Meijer and 
myself. Again, we are here to support FEMA's mission and are 
essentially the backbone of the agency. From the field 
operation teams and Reservists who deploy to disaster sites 
within hours of emergency declaration, to those who work behind 
the scenes who administer grant funding and organize countless 
logistical efforts.
    The FEMA work force is varied as a taskforce agency can be. 
In the last few years, FEMA has had to juggle on-going Federal 
responses, numerous record-breaking disasters, COVID-19, and 
resettlement of refugees around the world. That doesn't capture 
all of what FEMA has been doing in the last few years. It is a 
testament to the skill and flexibility of FEMA's work force 
that the agency is able to support the Federal Government's 
efforts in so many different ways in so many different areas. 
Yet it can't be said that the FEMA employees haven't felt the 
strain of being pulled in so many directions. Your work force, 
their work force, is suffering from an increase in burn-out in 
recent years. Also, employees have left the agency in a higher 
number than usual.
    It is important that FEMA address these rising attrition 
rates and prioritize. FEMA has failed to properly prioritize 
work force management issues like recruitment, retention, and 
the agency has struggled to deal with issues of harassment and 
discrimination within your work force. But in recent years, 
FEMA has taken significant and concrete steps to foster a more 
inclusive and resilient work force. With the support of 
Congress in 2019, FEMA created an Office of Professional 
Responsibility to better investigate allegations of employee 
misconduct. Under the Biden administration, FEMA has renewed a 
focus in addressing long-term work force challenges by 
increasing the availability and quality of training and 
educational opportunities for the emergency management 
community. Providing opportunities for advancement and the 
development of new skills is important to retaining the 
agency's skilled work force. Yet, we have much, much work to be 
done.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about 
what they would like to see FEMA do and demonstrate an on-going 
commitment to supporting its employees, as well as how we in 
Congress can assist you in this effort. It is not your job. It 
is not our job. It is the job of all of us collectively working 
together. We can all too easily get caught up in the immediacy 
of responding to the next big hurricane, wildfire, or tornado. 
But without doing the consistent and meaningful work to listen 
and respond to the needs of FEMA on a continuous basis, the 
agency puts in jeopardy its ability to effectively carry out 
its mission. I look forward to taking time today to examine 
these issues, to celebrate the accomplishments of your 
tremendous work force, and to look ahead at the next step FEMA 
must take to support its fine people. With that, I thank you 
again for joining us today. Madam Chair, I yield.
    [The statement of Chairman Correa follows:]
                  Statement of Chairman J. Luis Correa
                            January 20, 2022
    We're here this morning to discuss the FEMA workforce. The men and 
women who work to support FEMA's mission are the backbone of the 
agency. From the field operations teams and Reservists who deploy to 
disaster sites within hours of an emergency declaration, to those who 
work behind the scenes to administer grant funding and organize 
countless logistics. The FEMA workforce is as varied as the tasks the 
agency is asked to carry out.
    During the last few years, FEMA has had to juggle the on-going 
Federal response to numerous record-breaking disasters, in addition to 
the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resettlement of our Afghan allies. That 
doesn't capture all of FEMA's duties. It is a testament to the skill 
and flexibility of FEMA's workforce that the agency is able to support 
the Federal Government's efforts in so many different areas. Yet it 
cannot be said that FEMA employees haven't felt the strain of being 
pulled in so many directions. The workforce is suffering from an 
increase in burn-out and in recent years significantly more employees 
have left the agency than usual. It is absolutely critical that FEMA 
address these rising attrition rates, and prioritize the needs of its 
people.
    In the past, FEMA has failed to properly prioritize workforce 
management issues like recruitment and retention and the agency has 
struggled to deal with issues of harassment and discrimination within 
the workplace. But in recent years FEMA has taken significant and 
concrete steps to foster a more inclusive and resilient workforce. With 
the support of Congress, in 2019, FEMA created an Office of 
Professional Responsibility to better investigate allegations of 
employee misconduct. Under the Biden administration, FEMA has a renewed 
focus on addressing long-term workforce challenges by increasing the 
availability and quality of training and educational opportunities for 
the emergency management community. Providing opportunities for 
advancement and the development of new skills is important for 
retaining the agency's skilled workforce. Yet there is still more to be 
done.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what they would 
like to see FEMA do to demonstrate an on-going commitment to supporting 
its employees. As well as how we in Congress can assist this effort. It 
can be all too easy to get caught up in the immediacy of responding to 
the next big hurricane, wildfire, or tornado. But without doing the 
consistent and meaningful work to listen and respond to the needs of 
the FEMA community on a continuous basis, the agency puts in jeopardy 
its ability to effectively carry out its mission.
    I look forward to taking the time today to examine this issue, to 
celebrate the accomplishments of this workforce, and to look ahead at 
the next steps FEMA must take to support its people.

    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Correa, for that 
statement and for yielding back. The Chair now recognizes the 
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Management, 
and Accountability, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Meijer, 
for an opening statement.
    Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Chairwoman Demings and Ranking 
Member Cammack and Chairman Correa for holding this hearing 
today, the first for both subcommittees in 2022. Thank you to 
our witnesses for giving us their time and insights into this 
critical and timely topic.
    I certainly appreciate the work that GAO and RAND have done 
to improve FEMA's functions and the focus of today's hearing, 
how we can help build that work force which is ready to 
respond, and help FEMA fulfill its mission of helping people 
before, during, and after disasters. We will hear about the 
issues FEMA's work force has faced in the past and how FEMA has 
worked to resolve those problems. But most importantly, I hope 
we will hear how FEMA can help set itself up for success in the 
future.
    Before we begin, I would like to express as both the 
Chairwoman and Chairman Correa have said and also Ranking 
Member Cammack has said, express my sincere gratitude to the 
brave men and woman working tirelessly at FEMA who have barely 
had a break since the historic hurricane season of 2017. Just 
last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
stated that the United States has experienced $750 billion in 
damages from weather-related disasters just in the last 5 
years. Moreover, in 2020 and in 2021, the United States 
suffered from at least 20 individual disasters costing more 
than $1 billion each. The magnitude of those numbers is 
overwhelming and certainly speaks to the pressure that FEMA has 
been under.
    What is truly concerning is that the weather disasters are 
only a portion of what FEMA has been dealing with in the past 
several years. FEMA has also been at the forefront of the 
COVID-19 pandemic response for almost 2 years now. For the 
first time in history, FEMA is managing a disaster declaration 
in every State and territory in the Nation, as well as the 
District of Columbia. FEMA has been tasked with assisting in 
the coordination of the resettlement of Afghan allies through 
Operation Allies Welcome, as well as assisting in the border 
crisis on our Southern Border. The mission at FEMA seems to 
expand every few months and I can only imagine the stress and 
strain that this has put on the work force.
    So, again, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks and 
appreciation to the staff at FEMA for all the good work that 
they do day in and day out. Because when they are called into 
action, it is because the event is so catastrophic that local 
and State resources are overwhelmed. They are the last line of 
defense in recovery. America deserves and needs a strong FEMA, 
one that can fulfill its mission every time it is called upon 
because the American people expect this. As Members of 
Congress, we should also expect a well-managed organization 
that can fulfill its mission.
    Several studies have made recommendations over the years on 
how FEMA should recruit, train, and manage this work force. I 
know we will hear about some of those today, as well as from 
Mr. Fugate, a former FEMA administrator who has first-hand 
knowledge about managing the FEMA work force. Some recent GAO 
recommendations have been made to address these work force 
challenges, including that the FEMA administrator should 
develop a plan to address identified challenges, develop 
mechanisms, including collecting relevant data, and create a 
staff development program for FEMA's work force. FEMA has 
agreed to implement--are working to implement these 
recommendations and concurs with the conclusion. I hope that at 
a future date, we will be able to hear directly from FEMA on 
this matter. I also look forward to RAND's input on the survey 
they did with FEMA to estimate the prevalence of workplace 
harassment and discrimination in order to strengthen the core 
of the employment base.
    I am encouraged by FEMA's willingness to be open-minded and 
listen to outside groups about ways to reduce harassment and 
discrimination while also strengthening its work force both in 
terms of its mission and its internal culture. Because, again, 
FEMA plays a critical role in helping our citizens and 
communities prepare for and respond to disasters of all kinds. 
A strong work force is essential to carrying out this mission. 
I know we will do everything that we can to ensure that FEMA's 
work force is strong, equipped, and ready. I look forward to 
hearing from our witnesses. With that, I yield back.
    [The statement of Ranking Member Meijer follows:]
                Statement of Ranking Member Peter Meijer
    Chairwoman Demings, Ranking Member Cammack, Chairman Correa, thank 
you for holding this joint hearing today, the first for both 
subcommittees in 2022.
    And thank you to our witnesses for giving us their time and 
insights into this critical and timely topic--I certainly appreciate 
the work that GAO and RAND have done to improve FEMA's functions.
    The focus of today's hearing is on how FEMA can build a work force 
that is ready to respond and help FEMA fulfill its mission of Helping 
People Before, During, and After Disasters.
    We will hear about the issues FEMA's workforce has faced in the 
past, and how FEMA has worked to resolve those problems. Most 
importantly, I hope we will hear how FEMA can set itself up for success 
in the future.
    However, before we begin, I would like to express my sincere 
gratitude to the men and women working tirelessly at FEMA, who have 
barely had a break since the historic hurricane season of 2017.
    Just last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association 
stated that the United States has experienced $750 billion in damages 
from weather-related disasters in the last 5 years alone. Moreover, 
both in 2020 and 2021, the United States suffered from at least 20 
individual disasters that cost more than $1 billion each.
    The magnitude of those numbers is overwhelming and certainly speaks 
to the pressure that FEMA has been under. What is truly concerning is 
that weather disasters are only a portion of what FEMA has been dealing 
with over the last several years.
    FEMA has also been at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic for 
almost 2 years. For the first time in history, FEMA is managing a 
disaster declaration in every State and territory in the Nation, as 
well as the District of Columbia. FEMA has also been tasked with 
assisting in the coordination of the Afghan resettlement through 
Operation Allies Welcome, as well as assisting in the border crisis.
    The mission at FEMA seems to expand every few months, and I am sure 
that this stress and strain has taken its toll on the workforce.
    So, again, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks and 
appreciation to the staff at FEMA for all the good work they do day in 
and day out.
    FEMA is called into action when an event is so catastrophic, that 
local and State resources are overwhelmed. They are the last line of 
defense and recovery. America deserves a strong FEMA--one that can 
fulfill its mission every time it is called upon. Americans expect 
this, and as Members of Congress, we should also expect a well-managed 
organization that can fulfill its mission.
    Several studies have made recommendations over the years about how 
FEMA should recruit, train, and manage its workforce. We will hear 
about some of those today, as well as from Mr. Fugate, a former FEMA 
administrator, who has first-hand knowledge about managing the FEMA 
workforce.
    Some recent GAO recommendations have been made to address work 
force challenges, including that the FEMA administrator should:
    Develop a plan to address identified challenges that have hindered 
        FEMA's ability to provide reliable information to field 
        officials about staff skills and abilities;
    Develop mechanisms, including collecting relevant data, to assess 
        how effectively FEMA's disaster workforce was deployed to meet 
        mission needs in the field; and
    Create a staff development program for FEMA's disaster workforce 
        that addresses training access, delivery of on-the-job 
        training, and other development methods.
    FEMA has agreed with these recommendations and is working to 
implement them.
    I hope that at a future date we will be able to hear directly from 
FEMA on this matter.
    We will also hear from RAND about a survey they did on behalf of 
FEMA designed to estimate the prevalence of workplace harassment and 
discrimination at the agency. This survey certainly had some eye-
opening results, and I appreciate the opportunity to get more details 
on those findings here today.
    In response to this survey, FEMA developed a Culture Action 
Improvement Plan, and in the past several years, established an Office 
of Professional Responsibility and made anti-sexual harassment training 
mandatory across the agency.
    I am encouraged by FEMA's willingness to be open-minded and listen 
to outside groups about ways to reduce harassment and discrimination 
while also strengthening its workforce--both in terms of its mission 
and its internal culture.
    FEMA plays a critical role in helping our citizens and communities 
prepare for and respond to disasters of all kinds, and a strong 
workforce is essential to be able to do just that. I pledge to do 
everything I can from this seat to ensure that FEMA's workforce is 
strong, equipped with the tools it needs, and ready to help people 
before, during, and after disasters.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I yield back.

    Chairwoman Demings. The Chair thanks the Ranking Member for 
his statement. Members are reminded that the committees will 
operate according to the guidelines laid out by the Chairman 
and Ranking Member in their February 3 colloquy regarding 
remote procedures. Without objection, Members not on the 
subcommittees shall be permitted to sit and question the 
witnesses. Additional Member statements may be included in the 
record.
    [The statement of Chairman Thompson follows:]
                Statement of Chairman Bennie G. Thompson
                            January 20, 2022
    I would like to thank the FEMA workforce for their service to the 
country. In my home State of Mississippi, we have a lot of experience 
with disasters, unfortunately, and know the value of having a strong 
FEMA workforce.
    FEMA has continued to help communities respond to and recover from 
natural disasters. Meanwhile, it has carried out critical parts of the 
Federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic and supported other Federal 
agencies in the care of unaccompanied children at the border and the 
resettlement of Afghan allies. FEMA has been challenged with responding 
to multiple large-scale disasters while simultaneously being pulled 
into other important missions. This workload has hindered efforts to 
address workforce challenges, including hiring, training, and 
retention.
    The frequency and intensity of natural disasters due to climate 
change have only exacerbated these workforce challenges. In 2017, we 
saw the direct impact of a FEMA workforce that was understaffed, 
undertrained, and overwhelmed when three major storms made landfall in 
the span of less than a month. We need a robust FEMA workforce that is 
prepared to handle our new reality, which includes extreme weather 
events, pandemics, and other evolving threats.
    My concern about FEMA's workforce strength is not new. In 2019, 
then-FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor testified before this committee 
that the FEMA workforce had a staffing deficit of a ``few thousand.'' 
However, I regularly hear from constituents that they do not receive a 
response from FEMA when they apply for a job. There appears to be a 
disconnect. The agency has also struggled with issues of harassment and 
discrimination within the workplace, which is undoubtedly undermines 
efforts to build a strong workforce.
    Additionally, I continue to be concerned about the agency's lack of 
diversity, particularly in leadership roles. The workforce should be 
diverse and represent the country in order to provide, equitable, and 
comprehensive disaster assistance. For these reasons, I am glad the 
Biden administration demonstrated early on that strengthening the FEMA 
workforce would be a priority. The President's fiscal year 2022 budget 
request focuses on filling critical gaps in the agency's overall 
staffing, with a particular emphasis on strengthening the incident 
management workforce.
    Moreover, FEMA's 2022-2026 Strategic Plan names building a diverse 
and stronger workforce within FEMA as key objectives. The plan further 
seeks to improve equity and increase the availability and quality of 
training and educational opportunities for the emergency management 
workforce. These are promising steps by the Biden administration, but 
more work needs to be done.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about the 
challenges FEMA faces and what Congress can do to aid them in making 
FEMA's workforce stronger.

    Chairwoman Demings. I now welcome our panel of witnesses. 
Our first witness is former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. 
Mr. Fugate served as FEMA administrator throughout the Obama 
administration. During his tenure, he led FEMA through multiple 
record-breaking disaster years and oversaw the Federal 
Government's response to multiple natural disasters, including 
devastating tornadoes in the Midwest and Hurricanes Irene, 
Matthew, and Sandy, among others. Prior to his time in the 
Obama administration, Mr. Fugate was the director of Florida's 
Division of Emergency Management. During his time in Florida, 
he launched the largest mutual aid response to affected States 
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It is great to see you 
and thank you for joining us today.
    Our second witness is Chris Currie, the director of GAO's 
Homeland Security and Justice team. Mr. Currie leads GAO's work 
on emergency management disaster response and recovery and 
Department of Homeland Security management in high-risk issues. 
Mr. Currie began his tenure with GAO in 2002. It is great to 
see you and welcome.
    Our third and final witness is Carra Sims, a senior 
behavioral and social scientist at the RAND Corporation. Ms. 
Sims' current and past research includes investigating the 
effects of workplace stressors on job attitudes and 
performance, exploring the effects of organizational climate 
and culture on job attitudes and behavior, and how best to 
change organizational climate and culture and determining the 
knowledge, skills, and abilities required for success in 
various military and civilian jobs. Welcome, Ms. Sims, and 
thank you so much for joining us today.
    Without objection, the witnesses' full statements will be 
inserted in the record. I now ask each witness to summarize 
their statement for 5 minutes, beginning with former 
Administrator Fugate.

  STATEMENT OF W. CRAIG FUGATE, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL 
                  EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

    Mr. Fugate. Well, thank you, Chair and the Ranking Member, 
and the other Chair and Ranking Members. First of all, I would 
like to acknowledge the fact of the thanks you gave FEMA 
because I remember not too long ago in the distant past where 
FEMA wasn't held in high regard. The aftermath of Hurricane 
Katrina was a stain for the agency. As much as we are talking 
about the challenges FEMA is facing, I also would like to 
acknowledge how far FEMA has come from that response and the 
improvements they have made. A lot of it with the support of 
Congress.
    You asked an important question. What can Congress do to 
help FEMA develop and professionalize and continue to grow the 
work force? I want to address a couple of key issues because I 
think it is easy to state the problems. Quite honestly, a lot 
of what is being discussed is process. It will not change the 
outcome. You can do all the studies, gather all the data, do 
all the reviews, and it still won't change the fundamental 
process that FEMA depends upon a work force that is not what 
many people think it is. We use the term reserves. But FEMA 
employees that are hired as Reservists, are considered 
intermittent employees. They are only employed when there is a 
disaster. They have no benefits when they are not and they are 
on call.
    Now, think about the current work force that we are facing 
in the Nation with job shortages. How do you attract qualified 
people, train them, have them sit waiting in case there is a 
disaster, then deploy them and expect to have that kind of 
output with no other benefits or retentions outside of their 
initial training. Now, again, FEMA has a lot of disasters. Some 
folks are called up are a routinely deployed for long periods 
of time. But other more specialized skills are only deployed 
rarely. There is also the tendency to go to the same people 
over and over again because they have more experience. Newer 
people hired don't get the training, don't have the experience, 
and don't always get called up.
    So, the first thing I would ask Congress to look at is how 
do you maintain a work force? This is the majority of the folks 
that deploy in disasters are the Reservists that do the bulk of 
the work in recovery. How do you maintain on-call qualified 
trained staff that are only engaged when you deploy them to a 
disaster and have no other benefits? Even in the military, and 
again, we use the term Reservists, these are not the same type 
of benefits the Reservists have in the U.S. military where they 
are covered under the Uniformed Services Employment and 
Reemployment Act, where if people have jobs and get called up 
for military duty, those jobs are protected. That doesn't even 
apply to FEMA Reservists. Reservists have a known deployment of 
every month they have drill. They get reimbursed for that. They 
have 2 weeks' annual training. Again, subject to any call-ups 
for the Federal mission, protection for deployment. FEMA 
Reservists get none of that.
    So, I think the first thing we want to look at is can we 
give FEMA more tools in recruiting and retaining qualified 
Reservists that many of which only are going to deploy in 
certain times of disasters and certain skill sets and address, 
how do you incentivize people who would be available? Also, 
understand that some of these folks work full-time. They can't 
wait for a disaster. But they may have skills that are required 
by FEMA as their way to provide tools there.
    So, again, I would look at Reservists. Think about this. 
These are literally up to thousands to tens of thousands of 
people that we are deploying across this Nation. They are on-
call. They are totally subject to FEMA's needs. They are not 
incentivized when they are not deployed. They really don't get 
any benefits outside of when they are deployed. That model 
doesn't scale up to the frequency of disasters, nor does it 
work very good when the economy is strong because of the 
shortfall points.
    The second thing I would look at is the work that they are 
doing. Much has been made--and I think you will hear this 
across the board, is a concern that will be FEMA be able to 
respond to the next disaster? I can tell you the answer. The 
answer is yes, they will respond. That has not been the issue. 
The issue has been having to take people off of previous 
disasters where recovery work can take years, if not a decade, 
and move them to the new disaster. Stopping or slowing down the 
recovery from the previous disasters. I ask this question and I 
have had conversations with my counterparts at GAO and others, 
is our reimbursement process and rebuilding process takes 
literally, in New Orleans, we are still doing recovery from 
Katrina. I was still doing recovery when I left FEMA at 
Katrina. Why does it take us a decade when insurance companies 
are in and out in less than a year? I think we need to go back 
and say, instead of working always on the work force, we need 
to work on the process of how do we speed up the process of 
reimbursing communities? This may not be a shock to you, but 
too often decisions on how to process disasters are made based 
upon what I hear in a lot of hearings we start out with to 
avoid fraud, waste, and abuse, becoming the overriding decision 
maker that nobody wants to take a risk of an adverse finding in 
a IG report or a GAO report. So, we have such a high 
requirement that we have built processes to minimize that at 
the expense of helping communities recover quickly and 
requiring a work force that is extremely large.
    Think about it. I will almost guarantee the tornado 
outbreaks we saw earlier around Christmas in Kentucky and the 
other regions the insurance companies will be done within a 
year. FEMA will be there for the next 5 years. Why? If we don't 
fix the process, you are always going to need a lot more people 
to administer this. So, two ways to check this is give them 
better benefits to recruit them and look at how do we reduce 
the process so it takes fewer people to be successful in 
helping communities recover faster. Get the money there in the 
first year of recovery, not 5 years later while we are still 
trying to make sure the answer is perfect. Thank you Madam 
Chair and Ranking Member.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Fugate follows:]
                 Prepared Statement of W. Craig Fugate
                       Thursday, January 20, 2022
    Chair Val Demings, Ranking Member Kat Cammack, and Members of the 
committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today about FEMA, 
Building a Workforce Prepared and Ready to Respond.
    First, I want to celebrate the fact that FEMA's workforce has 
continued to respond to COVID-19, as well as hurricanes, floods, fires, 
and severe weather outbreaks, while administering its authorized and 
appropriated funded programs from Congress. Much has been done through 
remote work which has allowed FEMA to continue its mission during this 
pandemic.
    While others will talk about the challenges that FEMA faces in 
building and maintaining its workforce, I want to focus on possible 
solutions.
    FEMA is authorized major three classifications of workforce:
    FEMA Permanent Full Time (PFT) employees are hired through a 
competitive process that includes an application and interview. They 
may gain competitive status after 1 year of continuous service and full 
career tenure after 3 years of continuous service.
    Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees (CORE)--are hired to 
work for a specific, limited period, between 2 to 4 years. These 
positions may be renewed if there is on-going disaster work and funding 
is available. CORE employees are generally eligible for the same 
benefits as PFT employees, but do not gain competitive status nor 
career tenure during their term.
    Reservists (On-Call)--FEMA consistently seeks talented and hard-
working people who are eager to assist disaster survivors and first 
responders on an on-call basis as Reservist employees. They are the 
main FEMA workforce during an emergency or disaster.
    While there are other classifications such as FEMA Corps, 
Internships, most of the workforce resides in the above three 
classifications.
    Additionally, to augment the disaster workforce, the Department of 
Homeland Security maintains a Surge Capacity Force (SCF) and FEMA 
continues to recruit, roster, orient, and deploy SCF members as 
necessary.
                            recommendations
Better Utilization of the Permanent Full Time (PFT) Workforce in 
        Disaster Response
   All PFT Workforce members should be trained in an emergency 
        role in addition to their full-time role.
   PFT members should be allowed to deploy to disasters as part 
        of a rotational system to ensure daily operational needs of 
        FEMA are met.
   FEMA should continue to utilize the PFT as a surge workforce 
        during major event.
            Background
    Many of the PTF workforce join FEMA to help in disasters but are 
rarely deployed. Most disasters are managed by the CORE and Reservists 
workforce. But during major events like Hurricane Katrina, Super Storm 
Sandy, the hurricanes of 2017, and most recently the Federal response 
to COVID-19, it was required that the PFT workforce deploy to support 
emergency operations. Ensuring the PFT workforce is prepared and 
trained to emergency operations is key to provide a rapid surge 
workforce. There are three main activities that the PFT workforce are 
expected to perform during these major events.
    1. Deployed to the disaster to support emergency operations
    2. Staff the National Response Coordination Center (RCC) or 
        Regional RCCs
    3. Backfill for deployed staff to continue continuing of operations 
        for time-sensitive functions.
    My experience during Super Storm Sandy was that many of the those 
deployed for the first time came back with new appreciation for how 
their jobs supported the FEMA mission.
    When I became FEMA administrator in 2009, not every FEMA permanent 
full-time employee had emergency duties in their position descriptions 
even as this requirement was in the job postings. When I inquired about 
this, I was informed that not all employees were expected to be 
deployable in a disaster. We made a change that all new hires would 
complete a signing statement acknowledging that they would be expected 
to have an emergency function in addition to their full-time job. The 
current statement on U.S.A. Jobs is as follows:

``EMERGENCY ASSIGNMENT: Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring 
emergency management responsibilities, though not every position 
requires routine deployment to disaster sites. All positions are 
subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, 
which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than 
the official duty station, and may include duties other than those 
specified in the employee's official position description. Travel 
requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in 
nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require 
employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and 
operationally challenging conditions.''

    The Disaster Staffing Support Program (DSSP) is comprised of FEMA 
HQ FTE staff who do not typically deploy.
    This internal, surge workforce is made up of PFTs and COREs across 
the FEMA HQ who currently hold Ancillary Support, Unassigned, or 
Mission Essential designations.
Improve Benefits and Retention of the Reservist Workforce
    1. Provide all Reservist with a minimum of 2 days a month and 2 
        weeks a year of paid training if not deployed in that fiscal 
        year for at least 30 days.
    2. Consider adding the FEMA Reservist workforce to the Uniformed 
        Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act or provide 
        similar protections under the Stafford Act.
    3. Continue to improve the implementation of Disaster Reform and 
        Recovery Act (DRRA) where CORE and Reservists can compete for 
        PFT positions at FEMA under Merit Promotion after 3 or more 
        years of continuous work.
            Background
    Reservist at FEMA are not the equivalent of the military Reservist 
who are covered under the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-
Employment Rights Act. Rather FEMA Reservist are considered on-call who 
work intermittently with little benefits when not deployed. They have 
no protections if they have full-time employment when called up.
    Hiring and maintaining FEMA Reservists is a continuous process. As 
the work is on-call, and intermittent, attracting talent in tight job 
markets is a challenge. Without incentives to recruit and maintain 
Reservists, this workforce will continue to be a staffing challenge for 
current and future disasters.
            Hiring Under the Disaster Reform and Recovery Act (DRRA)
    Before the Disaster Reform and Recovery Act, Stafford Act employees 
could only apply for Permanent Full-Time (PFT) positions open to the 
general public. Now, Stafford Act employees can compete for PFT 
positions at FEMA under Merit Promotion after 3 or more years of 
continuous work.
Reduce the Workforce Requirements to Administer Disaster Assistance 
        Under the Stafford Act
    1. Speed disaster recovery by using estimated cost rather than 
        actual cost. Adapt Insurance Industry best practices to ensure 
        fair payouts for eligible work in a declared disaster in 
        months, not years.
    2. Continue the Dispute Resolution Process (Arbitration) for all 
        current and future disasters where agreement cannot be reached 
        in recommendation 1.
    3. Do not allow a mentality of zero fraud, waste, or abuse to drive 
        process. Review how much it cost to administer $1 in public 
        assistance to see how this has driven up the cost, staffing 
        requirements, and time it takes.
            Background
    Current staffing plans are based on the current implementation of 
disaster assistance under those programs available under Stafford Act 
Disaster Declarations.
    FEMA was given new tools in the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 
2013 to include using estimates for public assistance projects rather 
than actual cost.
    Continue support the FEMA Administrator's plans to address 
workplace harassment and discrimination.
Background
    In the Spring of 2019, FEMA hired a third-party organization, RAND, 
to conduct an employee survey on workplace harassment and 
discrimination in response to an internal investigation that found 
disturbing evidence of misconduct within FEMA's senior leadership 
ranks. The survey focused on the time frame of Spring 2018 through 
Spring 2019 and ultimately found numerous FEMA employees reported 
experiencing civil rights violations on the basis of sex, race, or 
ethnicity.
    Female employees reported experiencing a less positive experience 
in the workplace than their male counterparts.
    The report also identified that:
   Employees felt a gap in trust with agency senior leaders.
   Employees felt barriers to reporting civil rights violations 
        existed.
   Employees who did report violations or misconduct felt they 
        experienced retaliation.
   There is a lack of understanding of what constitutes sexual 
        misconduct and appropriate behaviors.
   Employees expressed feelings of isolation and heightened 
        levels of vulnerability.
   There is a perception that perpetrators are not held 
        accountable.
   Employees found there is inconsistency in conduct 
        expectations.
    FEMA provided this below information as they continue to improve 
the agency's work climate and engagements to help implement those 
changes.
   Conducted Listening Sessions for FEMA Staff to share 
        concerns on RAND report findings and next steps.
   Developed central ``landing page'' on the FEMA intranet to 
        serve as a one-stop shop for employee resources regarding 
        culture improvement.
   Developed and implemented Standards of Conduct for all 
        employees.
   Addressed Agency culture during new employee on-boarding 
        regarding FEMA's core values and our commitment to a workplace 
        free of harassment and discrimination. In addition, the agency 
        is updating the exit interview process to better identify 
        issues raised by employees moving on to different 
        opportunities.
   Required anti-harassment training for all employees.
   Reporting disciplinary actions in the FEMA Weekly for 
        agency-wide situational awareness.
    Field Operations Training.--FEMA is partnering with RAINN (Rape 
Abuse Incest National Network), the largest anti-sexual assault 
organization in the country.
   Since early 2020, RAINN initiative trainings have occurred 
        at 14 Joint Field Offices (JFOs) with a total of 2,000 
        participants and will include additional JFOs going forward.
   FEMA's goals, through the RAINN trainings are to:
     Raise awareness of sexual misconduct within selected JFOs.
     Provide JFO staff with tools to better prevent and respond 
            to sexual misconduct.
     Align community members within selected JFOs on next steps 
            toward safer environments.
     Create a culture of accountability and preparedness when 
            it comes to sexual misconduct.
     Execute a proactive approach to addressing sexual 
            misconduct.
     Implement sustainable change across the organization.
   Through March 2022, future trainings will occur at 6 
        additional JFOs and all trainings will be held virtually in 
        fiscal year 2021, with tentative options to deliver trainings 
        in-person in fiscal year 2022 pending COVID-19 restrictions.

    Chairwoman Demings. Mr. Fugate, I am sorry. I am so sorry 
to have to interrupt you, but your time has expired. We have 
gone a little bit well over. I would ask that during one of the 
questions, if there is additional information that you would 
please present it at that time because you have such a great 
perspective.
    I do also need to remind Members that votes have been 
called. I know that Members have been leaving. We are going to 
continue through. So, if you have not voted yet, please go 
ahead and vote and we are going to continue with the hearing. 
Thank you so much for your indulgence. I now recognize Mr. 
Currie to summarize his statement for 5 minutes. Mr. Currie.

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER P. CURRIE, DIRECTOR, HOMELAND SECURITY 
    AND JUSTICE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Mr. Currie. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Demings and 
Chairman Correa and Ranking Members Cammack and Meijer. I 
appreciate the opportunity to discuss our work on FEMA's work 
force over the years. I would also like to say that I have a 
deep respect for the men and women at FEMA. I have worked with 
them for many years. They work long hours, thankless jobs. They 
are away from home long periods of time. Also, many of them are 
also veterans and have joined FEMA to continue their service to 
the country.
    So, the findings of our work have nothing to do with the 
dedication and hard work of FEMA, but more about how the agency 
manages its people and how I think that could get better. I 
agree with Mr. Fugate, I mean, I think it is both. I think 
there are certainly areas within FEMA that could be improved 
and better managed, but I agree, we need to look at some long-
term reform efforts. I am going to talk about that in a minute.
    But today there has never been more pressure on the FEMA 
work force and they are tired now. In recent years, disasters 
have not just increased, but they are often sequential. There 
is no down time. There is no disaster season anymore. It is all 
year long. This requires FEMA's work force to deploy from one 
place to another after another. Then add to that that because 
of FEMA's capabilities, they have had to help with the pandemic 
response. Not just help but lead the response. Assist CBP at 
the border and help resettle Afghan refugees. So, you know, 
FEMA is asked to do these things because they have the 
resources, they have the authorities and the logistical 
abilities that many other Federal agencies don't have. However, 
they have taken on all these responsibilities with a work force 
structure and staffing process that hasn't transformed to keep 
up with this pace of what they are expected to do today.
    The existing work force models were designed to scale up 
during a past time long ago when disasters and large disasters 
were rare. I will talk a little bit about our work and then I 
will talk about, I think, some of the things we need to do 
moving forward. But our work, as has been stated, has 
identified a number of challenges internally that I think are 
going to get worse if they are not addressed over time. For 
example, FEMA has long faced challenges in deploying staff with 
the right qualifications and skills to meet the disaster needs. 
So, this is not just us. But we talked to FEMA leaders. We 
talked to Federal coordinating officers, field people, people 
on the ground. They told us that the agency's qualifications 
system, which is critical deploying the right people, doesn't 
effectively capture staff qualifications. Often leads to 
unqualified or untrained people being deployed to disasters. 
This causes problems and I think this needs to be fixed.
    We also found that FEMA struggles to train, coach, and 
develop its work force. Particularly, it is incident management 
work force, especially when deployed in the field. Field 
leaders told us they struggle to get the training and 
development necessary to be effective. For example, Reservists 
who make up, you know, 35 to 40 percent of FEMA's work force, 
they have problems accessing developmental opportunities when 
they are not deployed. This gets to some of the structural 
reforms Mr. Fugate talked about. For example, getting paid time 
in technology to train when they are deployed is very difficult 
because of the way they have to be paid through a specific 
disaster. So, what we recommended is that they--and this has 
been talked about already. They develop a more specific 
developmental program that addresses a lot of these challenges 
where we can do this outside of some of these deployments too.
    The other thing I would like to mention is FEMA has hired 
thousands of new employees in recent years. According to the 
data I have seen, they have increased their total force by over 
5,000 people in the last 6 years. They now have over 22,000 
staff ready to respond. Additional staff are fantastic given 
their increased workload, but it is not the only solution to 
this. They are likely to make some of these training and 
qualifications challenges even more difficult. For example, 
this means that less experienced staff are likely to be staffed 
to a number of these disasters. So, this is going to be 
something that we have to continue to address.
    So, I think as I mentioned, the problem is a little bit 
more complicated than just tweaking internal process. I think 
FEMA and the Congress should consider two larger areas. Some of 
this is going to align with what Mr. Fugate said. First, we 
need to consider a broader work force reform effort involving 
Congress and potential legislation. New authorities may be 
necessary to address some of these issues. For example, the 
restriction on training, reserve employees, and paying for 
training and development when they are not actually deployed to 
a disaster. The way that works now is the large part of the 
incident management work force is being trained when they are 
deployed to a disaster. This is great real-life experience, but 
it often means that training is not going to be a priority, not 
surprisingly.
    Second, we need to look at the process, I agree, and 
workload we are asking FEMA staff to perform. While, you know, 
most folks, I think, think of FEMA staff as immediately 
responding to a disaster with the blue jackets on with FEMA on 
the back, the truth is is that much of FEMA's work force 
manages grants and money and recovery efforts from prior 
disasters. There are many disasters that stay open for 5 to 10 
years or 15 years or 16 years, in the case of Hurricane 
Katrina. FEMA told us last year that they were managing almost 
1,000 prior disasters that were still in some stage of 
recovery. This means, we are still cutting checks from 
disasters that happened 15 years ago, as Mr. Fugate mentioned 
about Hurricane Katrina.
    So, the bottom line is that streamlining existing programs 
to be more efficient would also help cut down on FEMA's 
workload and help them focus on the things we think they need 
to be focused on. This completes my statement today. I look 
forward to discussing how we can address the challenges and to 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Currie follows:]
              Prepared Statement of Christopher P. Currie
                       Thursday, January 20, 2022
                             gao highlights
    Highlights of GAO-22-105631, a testimony before the Subcommittees 
on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery and Oversight, 
Management, and Accountability, Committee on Homeland Security, House 
of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study
    FEMA has long been tasked with the difficult job of leading the 
Federal response to natural disasters. The increasing frequency of 
disasters and the additional responsibilities of responding to the 
COVID-19 pandemic and other events have stretched the FEMA workforce in 
unprecedented ways.
    This testimony discusses GAO's prior work on various FEMA workforce 
challenges. This statement is based on products GAO issued from July 
2015 to August 2021. For those products, GAO reviewed and analyzed 
Federal law, Federal data, and agency documentation and interviewed 
Federal, State, and local officials as well as representatives of 
stakeholder groups impacted by disasters. GAO also conducted some of 
these interviews as part of visits to locations affected by hurricanes 
in 2017 and 2018. Additionally, GAO conducted 17 focus groups with FEMA 
staff.
What GAO Recommends
    GAO has made numerous recommendations in prior reports designed to 
address the workforce challenges discussed in this testimony. FEMA has 
taken steps to address these recommendations and GAO is monitoring 
FEMA's on-going efforts.
fema workforce.--long-standing and new challenges could affect mission 
                                success
What GAO Found
    GAO's past work has identified long-standing challenges facing the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) workforce. In May 2020, 
for example, GAO reported on the following workforce challenges within 
FEMA:
    Staffing shortages.--The 2017 and 2018 disaster seasons created 
unprecedented demand for FEMA's workforce. FEMA deployed over 10,000 
personnel during the peak of each season but faced shortages in over 
half of its cadres--operational or programmatic groups--when disasters 
began. For example, 18 of 23 cadres operated with 25 percent or less of 
staff available to deploy when Hurricane Maria made landfall in 2017. 
In addition, many employees--up to 48 percent in some cases--declined 
deployments due, according to FEMA officials, to burn-out and austere 
conditions in the field.
    Workforce qualifications.--GAO found that FEMA faced challenges 
deploying staff with the right qualifications and skills at the right 
times to meet disaster needs. Qualification status in FEMA's systems 
was not a reliable indicator of staff's ability to perform in the 
field. For example, in 14 of the focus groups GAO held with FEMA staff, 
participants said that staff who were designated as qualified in FEMA's 
system did not always have the necessary skills for their position. GAO 
recommended that FEMA develop a plan to address challenges in providing 
quality information to field leaders about staff qualifications. FEMA 
told GAO in December 2021 that its Field Operations Directorate has 
created plans to inform field leadership about staff skills and 
abilities, among other things. GAO also recommended that FEMA develop 
mechanisms to assess deployment outcomes. FEMA said it is modifying its 
force structure targets, with input from field leadership, and has 
implemented continuous data collection efforts.
    Staff development.--GAO found shortcomings in FEMA's ability to 
ensure staff training and development for the skills needed in the 
field. For example, Reservists--often comprising the greatest 
proportion of FEMA staff in the field during a disaster--faced barriers 
to staff development and inconsistently received performance 
evaluations. GAO recommended that FEMA create a staff development 
program that addresses access to training, development, and feedback. 
In response, FEMA has taken a number of steps, including process 
improvements for development opportunities and creating a plan to 
consistently conduct performance reviews.
    GAO will continue to monitor FEMA's actions and assess the extent 
to which these actions address GAO's recommendations.
    These workforce challenges can affect FEMA's ability to achieve its 
mission to help people before, during, and after disasters. For 
example, GAO has reported on challenges with inadequate training and 
low morale for Disaster Recovery Center call center employees. 
Improving training and employee engagement and morale may help improve 
services provided to disaster survivors.
    With an increase in the frequency and cost of disasters, and with 
FEMA supporting numerous efforts outside of its normal core 
responsibilities, GAO is concerned that FEMA personnel may not be 
prepared to manage a catastrophic natural disaster or concurrent 
disasters.
    Chairwoman Demings, Chairman Correa, Ranking Members Cammack and 
Meijer, and Members of the subcommittees: Thank you for the opportunity 
to discuss our work on the challenges facing the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency's (FEMA) workforce.
    FEMA has long been tasked with the difficult job of leading the 
Federal response to natural disasters and other emergencies. It funds, 
manages, and coordinates response and recovery efforts with other 
Federal agencies; States; local, Tribal, and territorial governments; 
and others. The increasing frequency of disasters and the additional 
responsibilities of responding to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-
19) pandemic, assisting at the Southwest Border, and resettling Afghan 
refugees have stretched the FEMA workforce in unprecedented ways. In 
recent years, we have reported on long-standing workforce management 
challenges within the agency. FEMA management has had to redeploy 
response personnel from one disaster to the next, and the agency has 
reported facing staffing shortfalls in response to some disasters. In 
addition, a large influx of new employees has added to the challenges 
of providing timely, program-specific training.
    Successfully addressing these challenges is important because, as 
we reported in May 2020, FEMA's disaster workforce will be in high 
demand for the foreseeable future.\1\ The U.S. Global Change Research 
Program and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and 
Medicine project that extreme weather events will become more frequent 
and intense due to climate change.\2\ The historic 2017 and 2018 
disaster seasons pushed FEMA well beyond its routine disaster response 
posture. In 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and the severe 
wildfires in California, collectively affected 47 million people--
nearly 15 percent of the Nation's population. In 2018, Hurricanes 
Florence and Matthew and another severe California wildfire season 
again necessitated a major Federal response. The numbers of FEMA staff 
deployed for each of these seasons were more than double the roughly 
5,000 personnel deployed at the peak of the 2016 disaster season.
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    \1\ GAO, FEMA Disaster Workforce: Actions Needed to Address 
Deployment and Staff Development Challenges, GAO-20-360 (Washington, 
DC: May 4, 2020).
    \2\ GAO, Climate Change: Information on Potential Economic Effects 
Could Help Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Fiscal Exposure, GAO-17-720 
(Washington, DC: Sept. 28, 2017). Managing fiscal exposure due to 
climate change has been on our high-risk list since 2013, in part, 
because of concerns about the increasing costs of disaster response and 
recovery efforts. See GAO-21-119SP; also https://www.gao.gov/highrisk/
limiting-federal-governments-fiscal-exposure-better-managing-climate-
change-risks.
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    These increased demands on the FEMA workforce persist. FEMA 
responded to many disasters in 2020, including a record-breaking 
hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, and the most active fire year 
on record for the West Coast, with record-breaking wildfires in several 
States.\3\
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    \3\ In addition to supporting the COVID-19 response, FEMA supported 
California's largest fire in history and managed the response to 10 
named storms in September 2020 alone. As of February 2021, FEMA had 
personnel deployed to 173 active disasters and was supporting 956 open 
disasters.
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    Concurrent with this increase in natural disasters, FEMA has been 
tasked with new responsibilities. In particular, FEMA has played a key 
role in the Federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to an 
assessment report issued by FEMA in January 2021, the scale and 
duration of COVID-19 operations challenged FEMA's capabilities. Among 
other things, FEMA established mass vaccination sites and provided 
funeral assistance to families, the scope of which is unprecedented for 
the agency. We found that between mid-April 2021 and late-June 2021, 
FEMA received and processed over 222,000 applications for funeral 
assistance. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, FEMA had processed 
approximately 6,000 cases of funeral assistance over the past decade.
    The increased frequency and cost of disasters and FEMA's support of 
numerous efforts outside of its normal core responsibilities present 
challenges to FEMA, as it must ensure that its personnel are prepared 
to manage a catastrophic natural disaster or concurrent disasters.
    My statement today discusses our prior work on FEMA's workforce, 
including challenges FEMA faces and how these challenges can affect 
FEMA achieving its mission.
    My statement today is based on products we issued from July 2015 to 
August 2021. To perform our prior work, we reviewed and analyzed 
Federal law, a non-generalizable sample of post-disaster contracts, 
agency guidance, and other agency documentation. We also analyzed data 
from FEMA, the General Services Administration, and the Office of 
Personnel Management. We interviewed officials from FEMA and other 
selected Federal agencies; and State, territory, local, and nonprofit 
officials impacted by disasters. We conducted some of these interviews 
as part of visits to locations affected by hurricanes in 2017 and 2018, 
where we also met with disaster survivors. Additionally, we conducted 
17 focus groups with FEMA staff. More detailed information on the scope 
and methodology of our prior work can be found in each of the issued 
reports cited throughout this statement.
    We conducted the work on which this statement is based in 
accordance with generally accepted Government auditing standards. Those 
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 
conclusion based on our audit objectives.
      workforce challenges could affect fema achieving its mission
FEMA's Workforce Challenges
    In May 2020, we reported that FEMA has faced challenges with: (1) 
Staffing shortages, (2) workforce qualifications, and (3) staff 
development, and we made recommendations to address aspects of these 
challenges.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ GAO-20-360.
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   Staffing shortages.--During the 2017 and 2018 disaster 
        seasons, several large-scale disasters created an unprecedented 
        demand for FEMA's workforce. FEMA deployed 14,684 and 10,328 
        personnel, respectively, at the peak of each of these seasons 
        and reported staffing shortages. FEMA faced shortages across 
        over half of its cadres--groups organized by operational or 
        programmatic functions--when disasters made landfall or began 
        during the 2017 season, and FEMA faced similar shortages during 
        the 2018 disaster season. For instance, according to FEMA's 
        deployment data, 18 of 23 cadres operated with 25 percent or 
        less of staff available to deploy when Hurricane Maria made 
        landfall in Puerto Rico. In addition, many staff members who 
        were available to deploy declined when requested to do so. For 
        example, 48 percent of FEMA staff declined a deployment to 
        Puerto Rico in 2017 after Hurricane Maria, in part due to the 
        austere conditions and burn-out, and 40 percent declined a 
        deployment to California wildfires in 2018.
    With an increase in the frequency and cost of disasters, and with 
        FEMA simultaneously supporting numerous efforts outside of its 
        normal core responsibilities, we are concerned that FEMA 
        personnel may not be prepared to manage a catastrophic natural 
        disaster or concurrent disasters. We recently initiated work 
        related to FEMA's recruitment, hiring, and retention.
   Workforce qualifications.--In addition to staffing 
        shortages, we reported that FEMA faced challenges with 
        deploying staff with the right qualifications and skills to 
        meet disaster needs. FEMA field officials reported the 
        qualification status in FEMA's qualification systems was not a 
        reliable indicator of staff's ability to perform in the field. 
        For example, in 14 focus groups we held, participants stated 
        they encountered staff members who were designated as qualified 
        in FEMA's system but did not have the skills or experience to 
        perform effectively in their positions.\5\ Additionally, 
        planning managers in a joint field office we visited said that 
        staff inaccurately designated as qualified in FEMA's 
        qualification system were sometimes only able to complete half 
        of the tasks expected of them, which hindered the cadre's 
        ability to support mission needs. They noted that this affected 
        morale, added to others' workload, and could turn a 12-hour day 
        into a 14-hour day.
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    \5\ The number of focus groups in this section excludes the 3 focus 
groups we conducted with local hires. We excluded them from the counts 
because local hires do not consistently use the FEMA Qualification 
System.
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    We recommended that FEMA develop a plan--with time frames and 
        milestones--to address identified challenges that have hindered 
        FEMA's ability to provide reliable and complete information to 
        field leaders and managers about staff knowledge, skills, and 
        abilities. FEMA concurred with this recommendation. In December 
        2021, FEMA reported, among other things, developing 
        qualification plans for cadre personnel to better inform field 
        leaders about staff knowledge, skills, and abilities, and we 
        are conducting additional follow-up to assess FEMA's actions. 
        To address the complex and interrelated challenges we 
        identified, it will be important for FEMA to take a 
        comprehensive approach to this issue and consider cross-cutting 
        solutions.
    We also found that FEMA did not have a plan to evaluate staffing 
        challenges. Specifically, we found that FEMA lacked mechanisms 
        to assess deployment outcomes or the extent to which it 
        deployed the right mix of staff at the right time to meet 
        mission needs. FEMA collected data related to staffing levels 
        and availability, such as comparing staff qualification rates 
        to targets and tracking the number of staff deployed to 
        disasters. However, these measures did not directly demonstrate 
        deployment outcomes or how effectively FEMA deployed available 
        staff. Without the ability to assess outcomes, FEMA officials 
        lacked critical information to evaluate the effectiveness of 
        its deployment strategies.
    We recommended that FEMA develop mechanisms, including collecting 
        data to determine how effectively its workforce was deployed to 
        meet mission needs. FEMA concurred with this recommendation. 
        FEMA officials have stated that the agency is making progress 
        toward meeting the force structure targets it established in 
        2019 and has a process in place to modify the targets as 
        needed. In December 2021, FEMA officials said FEMA is modifying 
        its force structure targets, with input from field leadership, 
        and has implemented continuous data collection efforts. We are 
        continuing to assess whether these efforts address our 
        recommendation, which focuses on FEMA systematically collecting 
        feedback and relevant data on the extent to which its 
        deployment processes met field needs during disasters.
    We designated these 2 recommendations related to workforce 
        qualifications as priority recommendations for the Department 
        of Homeland Security (DHS), meaning we believe they warrant 
        priority attention and can substantially improve or transform 
        major Government programs or agencies.\6\
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    \6\ See GAO, Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Homeland 
Security, GAO-21-377PR (Washington, DC: Aug. 13, 2021).
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   Staff development.--Finally, we found shortcomings in FEMA's 
        ability to ensure staff development--that consists of training 
        courses, on-the-job learning, coaching, and mentoring--for the 
        skills and abilities needed in the field. Staff told us they 
        received inadequate on-the-job training or coaching, even 
        though most participants in our focus groups said that these 
        types of learning are the most useful. We found that at the 
        start of their deployment during the 2017 and 2018 disaster 
        seasons, 36 percent of FEMA's incident management workforce did 
        not have an official assigned to coach and evaluate their task 
        performance--the primary mechanism the agency depends on for 
        coaching. Furthermore, when such officials were assigned, they 
        often lacked time to coach staff. For example, officials at one 
        of the joint field offices we visited said mission needs always 
        come first and coaching and evaluating responsibilities are 
        frequently not a priority. Supervisors in the field also often 
        inconsistently completed performance evaluations for deployed 
        staff. Additionally, Reservists--who often comprise the 
        greatest proportion of FEMA staff in the field during a 
        disaster and make up 35 percent of FEMA's workforce as of 
        August 2021--faced barriers to accessing developmental 
        opportunities when not deployed, including lack of paid time 
        and technology needed to access training. Effective and 
        consistent staff development is particularly important because 
        FEMA has hired a large number of Reservists over the past few 
        years. Our analysis of FEMA data showed that from June 1, 2017 
        to May 31, 2019, the agency hired over 3,200 Reservists, which 
        was 40 percent of the agency's entire Reservist workforce as of 
        June 1, 2019. The challenges associated with underqualified 
        staff we noted previously underscore the need for a 
        comprehensive staff development program that would equip all 
        staff to meet mission needs in the field.
    We recommended that FEMA create a staff development program that 
        addresses access to training, on-the-job training, use of 
        performance evaluations, and consistent developmental 
        opportunities regardless of whether FEMA employees are 
        deployed. FEMA concurred with our recommendation and has taken 
        a number of steps to improve staff development. Steps FEMA has 
        taken include developing processes to improve access to 
        training and coaching and creating a plan to consistently 
        conduct performance reviews during deployment. We are 
        continuing to monitor FEMA's actions to assess the extent to 
        which these actions constitute an integrated and cohesive 
        program to develop its workforce and help ensure the best 
        results for disaster survivors.
    We have also reported on the importance of employee engagement to 
        achieving an agency's mission.\7\ Based on the Federal Employee 
        Viewpoint Survey, FEMA's measure of employee engagement 
        recently increased.\8\ In 2019, FEMA's Employee Engagement 
        score was 65.8, placing it sixth out of 15 DHS components. That 
        number trended upwards in 2020, to 72.2 in 2020, moving it to 
        fourth within DHS and on par with the Government-wide average 
        of 72.4. Further, in the survey, 87.6 percent of FEMA employees 
        said they know how their work is related to agency goals. FEMA 
        has a critical mission to help people before, during, and after 
        disasters, and each employee plays a role in achieving the 
        agency's mission. However, the stress of challenges we 
        mentioned today, including staffing shortages, coupled with 
        burn-out associated with the increased frequency of disasters 
        and an expanded scope of responsibility over time, have the 
        potential to negatively affect FEMA employees' engagement and 
        morale. Additionally, in recent years, there have been concerns 
        about FEMA's workplace culture and climate, specifically 
        regarding harassment and discrimination, which can affect 
        workforce morale and retention.\9\ We have on-going work on 
        FEMA's actions to address harassment and discrimination. We 
        expect to report these findings in fall 2022.
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    \7\ In 2015, we reported that a number of studies of private-sector 
entities have found that increased levels of employee engagement result 
in better individual and organizational performance. This includes 
increased employee performance and productivity; higher customer 
service ratings; fewer safety incidents; and less absenteeism and 
turnover. Studies of the public sector, while more limited, have shown 
similar benefits. See GAO, Federal Workforce: Additional Analysis and 
Sharing of Promising Practices Could Improve Employee Engagement and 
Performance, GAO-15-585 (Washington, DC: July 14, 2015). For more 
information about employee engagement at DHS and its component 
agencies, such as FEMA, see GAO, DHS Employee Morale: Some Improvements 
Made, but Additional Actions Needed to Strengthen Employee Engagement, 
GAO-21-204 (Washington, DC: January 12, 2021).
    \8\ The Office of Personnel Management administers the annual 
Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey and uses the responses to calculate 
the employee engagement index. The Office of Personnel Management 
defines employee engagement as employees' sense of purpose that is 
evident in their display of dedication, persistence, and effort in 
their work or overall attachment to their organization and its mission.
    \9\ In 2018, FEMA began an investigation into allegations of 
harassment and misconduct by a senior executive within the agency. In 
2019, FEMA commissioned a survey from the RAND Corporation to estimate 
the prevalence of harassment and discrimination. In its 2020 report, 
the RAND Corporation estimated that 29 percent of FEMA employees 
experienced discrimination or harassment related to sex, gender, or 
race/ethnicity in the previous year. See RAND Corporation, Harassment 
and Discrimination on the Basis of Gender and Race/Ethnicity in the 
FEMA Workforce (2020).
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Examples of How Workforce Challenges Affect FEMA's Mission
    Experiences from the 2017 and 2018 disaster seasons highlight the 
importance of continuing to make progress on addressing the long-
standing workforce management challenges. Such workforce challenges can 
affect FEMA's ability to carry out its mission. We have reported 
examples of how these workforce challenges affect FEMA's operations and 
those FEMA serves, including that: (1) Contracting staff shortages 
exacerbated challenges for recovery efforts (2) Public Assistance 
programs in Puerto Rico faced challenges due to high staff turnover, 
and (3) low morale and inadequate training at call centers decreased 
the quality of service delivery.
    Contracting staff shortages exacerbated challenges for recovery 
efforts. In April 2019, we reported on the Federal Government's 
contracting efforts for preparedness, response, and recovery efforts 
related to the 2017 hurricanes and California wildfires. We found, 
among other things, that FEMA experienced contracting staffing 
shortages, which exacerbated challenges for disaster response and 
recovery.\10\
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    \10\ GAO, 2017 Disaster Contracting: Actions Needed to Improve the 
Use of Post-Disaster Contracts to Support Response and Recovery, GAO-
19-281 (Washington, DC: April 24, 2019).
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    As we reported in April 2019, FEMA cited that contracting workforce 
shortages severely taxed its contracting processes and personnel. For 
example, 8 of FEMA's 10 regional offices, which cover all U.S. States 
and territories, had only one permanent full-time contracting official. 
Regional offices are responsible for managing post-disaster contracts, 
which are awarded after a disaster hits, even if regional procurement 
staff were not involved in the initial award of those contracts. Post-
disaster contracts can last for years after a disaster occurs.
    In that report, we noted that FEMA took some steps to address gaps 
in its contracting workforce. For example, officials told us they 
planned to hire additional contracting staff; however, it was unclear 
when these staff would be hired or how they would be allocated across 
FEMA's Office of the Chief Procurement Officer. Furthermore, we also 
found that FEMA had not assessed its contracting workforce needs since 
2014. Without such an assessment, FEMA is at risk of not having a 
sufficient contracting workforce during a disaster. We recommended that 
FEMA assess its workforce needs--including staffing levels, mission 
needs, and skill gaps--for contracting staff, to include regional 
offices and Disaster Acquisition Response Teams; and develop a plan, 
including time lines, to address any gaps. FEMA concurred with this 
recommendation. FEMA identified a number of actions it would take to 
address this recommendation including competency modeling for its 
contracting staff and a workforce analysis to identify skill gaps. As 
of May 2021, these actions were still in progress.
    Public Assistance programs in Puerto Rico faced challenges due to 
high staff turnover. In our March 2019 report on recovery efforts in 
Puerto Rico, we found that workforce capacity constraints were a 
challenge.\11\ We reported that both FEMA and municipal officials had 
concerns about FEMA staff turnover and lack of knowledge about how the 
Public Assistance alternative procedures were to be applied in Puerto 
Rico.\12\ While several municipal officials we spoke to remarked 
positively on consistent communication with FEMA officials, municipal 
officials in six municipalities we visited cited high levels of 
turnover among FEMA staff as a challenge with the recovery process.\13\ 
For example, officials in three municipalities said that discontinuity 
in FEMA personnel had caused them to have duplicative conversations 
with FEMA. This issue has persisted over time, as we reported in our 
February 2020 report on continuing disaster recovery efforts in Puerto 
Rico.\14\ Municipal and Puerto Rico agency officials we spoke to 
experienced confusion about changing FEMA Public Assistance guidance 
partly due to changing points of contact.\15\ We reported that reliance 
on Central Office of Recovery, Reconstruction, and Resilience, which 
was created by the Government of Puerto Rico, or individual FEMA staff 
to deliver and distribute FEMA guidance posed a risk that the guidance 
would not be accessible to all partners involved in recovery efforts. 
FEMA officials acknowledged that they faced difficulties in 
disseminating information in Puerto Rico. We recommended FEMA develop a 
repository for all current applicable Public Assistance policies and 
guidance for Puerto Rico and make it available to all recovery 
partners.
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    \11\ GAO, Puerto Rico Hurricanes: Status of FEMA Funding, 
Oversight, and Recovery Challenges, GAO-19-256 (Washington, DC: Mar. 
14, 2019).
    \12\ Unlike in the standard Public Assistance program where FEMA 
will fund the actual cost of a project, the Public Assistance 
alternative procedures allow awards for permanent work projects to be 
made on the basis of fixed cost estimates to provide financial 
incentives for the timely and cost-effective completion of work. This 
makes the recipient or subrecipient responsible for any project costs 
that exceed the agreed-upon fixed-cost estimate. However, if actual 
costs are less than the fixed-cost estimate, the recipient or 
subrecipient may use all or part of excess funds for other eligible 
purposes, such as additional cost-effective hazard mitigation measures 
to increase the resilience of public infrastructure, see 42 U.S.C.  
5189f. For more information, see GAO-19-256.
    \13\ During interviews with officials from 10 selected 
municipalities, officials identified various challenges during the 
course of our discussions. When we reported the number of 
municipalities that identified a particular challenge, this did not 
necessarily mean that the remaining municipalities did not also 
experience the challenge. It meant that those municipalities did not 
raise the challenge during the course of our interviews.
    \14\ GAO, Puerto Rico Disaster Recovery: FEMA Actions Needed to 
Strengthen Project Cost Estimation and Awareness of Program Guidance, 
GAO-20-221 (Washington, DC: Feb. 5, 2020).
    \15\ FEMA iteratively developed, refined, and clarified Public 
Assistance guidance in Puerto Rico to respond and adapt to changing 
recovery conditions since the 2017 hurricanes.
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    In response to this recommendation, FEMA made Public Assistance 
policies and guidance documents accessible to Puerto Rico recovery 
partners through its internal Public Assistance application management 
system. By doing so, FEMA improved the accessibility of information and 
its assurance that recovery partners are aware of current guidance. 
With real-time access to FEMA's current applicable guidance, there 
could be less confusion and need for additional requests for 
clarification. Even with improved access to policies and guidance, FEMA 
employees will continue to be an important source of information and 
support for disaster survivors and local officials. The local 
officials' experiences we previously reported on highlight how FEMA's 
workforce challenges, including staff turnover, can affect disaster 
recovery efforts.
    Low morale and inadequate training at call centers affected service 
delivery. Other examples of how workforce challenges can affect FEMA's 
services include challenges with call center employee morale and 
training. In September 2020, we reported that for several years leading 
up to our reporting, FEMA's call center workforce faced challenges 
using program guidance to assist survivors and struggled with low 
morale.\16\ We also reported that following the catastrophic 2017 
hurricane season, call center staff worked without adequate training, 
in part due to high disaster activity in 2017 and 2018. The training 
FEMA provided did not effectively support staff in applying guidance to 
answer survivors' questions and process cases encountered in their 
work, according to National Processing Service Center staff. In 
addition, Disaster Recovery Centers provide an important resource to 
survivors who do not have electricity or reliable cell phone service, 
as is often the case following a disaster, as well as those who do not 
regularly use computers. However, the limitations of staff 
qualifications and capabilities at these locations resulted in missed 
opportunities to help survivors quickly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ GAO, Disaster Assistance: Additional Actions Needed to 
Strengthen FEMA's Individuals and Households Program, GAO-20-503 
(Washington, DC: Sep. 30, 2020).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In that report, we also found that opportunities existed to improve 
employee engagement and morale among National Processing Service Center 
staff. Staff we spoke to consistently cited engagement challenges that 
undermined morale in all 4 call center locations. According to National 
Processing Service Center staff at all 4 locations, poor employee 
engagement from their management and supervisors resulted in pressures 
related to productivity, among other challenges, particularly since the 
2017 hurricane season generated a high work volume for Individual & 
Households Program call center staff. National Processing Service 
Center staff in all 4 locations stated they felt pressured to meet 
productivity standards, which conflicted with providing quality service 
to the survivor.
    We recommended, among other things, that FEMA use desirable 
characteristics of employee engagement--including performance feedback, 
career development, communication, and attention to work-life balance--
while completing planned activities for improving morale among call 
center staff, assessing staff satisfaction scores, and identifying 
additional steps to strengthen employee morale. We also recommended 
that FEMA assess the effectiveness of the staff training for the 
Individuals & Households Program and implement strategies to ensure 
staff deployed to the Disaster Recovery Centers has the needed 
capabilities to provide support to survivors. DHS concurred with our 
recommendations and has taken steps to address them, but has not yet 
completed planned work, partly due to increased disaster operations and 
the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing these recommendations remains 
important, particularly given that FEMA has since established a 
dedicated call center number and staff to the COVID-19 funeral 
assistance program.
    Thank you, Chairwoman Demings, Chairman Correa, Ranking Members 
Cammack and Meijer, and Members of the subcommittees. This concludes my 
prepared statement. I would be happy to respond to any questions you 
may have at this time.

    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much for your testimony. 
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Sims to summarize her statement 
for 5 minutes.

   STATEMENT OF CARRA S. SIMS, SENIOR BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL 
                SCIENTIST, THE RAND CORPORATION

    Ms. Sims. Thank you, Chairman and Chairwoman, Ranking 
Members of the subcommittees for allowing me to testify today. 
I am a principal investigator and author of a study published 
in December 2020 on the prevalence and characteristics of civil 
rights violations at FEMA. First, I am going to tell you a 
little bit about the history of the study. Next, I will share 
some results. Finally, I will highlight some of our 
recommendations.
    In 2018, FEMA executed an internal investigation into 
sexual harassment and misconduct in its senior leadership 
ranks. Unlike most organizations confronted with these issues, 
FEMA leaders chose to openly discuss and address the problems. 
As part of that, they reached out to us to provide an 
independent and objective assessment across the organization 
about the overall prevalence and characteristics of harassment 
and discrimination at FEMA.
    Working with FEMA, we decided to focus on two classes of 
civil rights violation that we and they felt were likely to be 
most common. First, harassment and discrimination on the basis 
of sex and gender. Second, harassment and discrimination on the 
basis of race/ethnicity. I use the term civil rights violation 
to apply to both. Now, I will review three main findings, 
though you can find more detailed results in the written 
testimony and, of course, in the written report.
    First, we found civil rights violations affected many 
employees in the FEMA work force. Almost one-third of employees 
categorized as having experienced at least one gender-based or 
race/ethnicity-based civil rights violation in the previous 
year. Women were more likely to experience these than were men. 
Groups such as African American employees experienced these 
more frequently as well. Rates of civil rights violations 
varied across offices as you can see in Figure 2 of my written 
testimony.
    Second, we also examined perceptions about key leadership, 
key leaders that play a critical role in overall workplace 
climate for gender-based and race/ethnicity-based harassment. 
As well as looking at climate or general workplace instability. 
As an example of a key leadership behavior, it is a legal 
requirement that supervisors forward reports to them to an 
appropriate authority. However, about one-fourth of women were 
not sure that their supervisors would report sexual harassment 
to the right FEMA authority. About one-fourth of African 
American employees felt similarly with regard to how their 
supervisors would handle a racial/ethnic harassment complaint. 
About 40 percent of women and African American employees 
expressed similar sentiments about FEMA senior leaders. In 
general, men had more positive perceptions of the work 
environment at FEMA than women did. In addition, White and 
Hispanic employees had more positive perceptions of the work 
environment than did African American employees. This suggests 
FEMA employees perceive discrepancies in the leadership 
enforcement of workplace norms for professional behavior.
    Third, employees' concerns are also reflected in the 
actions that employees took after experiencing a civil rights 
violation. FEMA employees did not always report the incident, 
not to an official channel. Top barriers to reporting included 
that the employee did not think anything would be done and they 
wanted to forget about it and move on. Most FEMA employees who 
reported discrimination, were not satisfied with FEMA's 
response, possibly due to the actions taken or not. In fact, 
about 40 percent of those having reported discrimination were 
encouraged to just drop the issue. Of those who reported 
harassment, one-fourth or more indicated having been subject to 
some form of retaliation, which is itself illegal, as did more 
than one-third who reported discrimination.
    If FEMA employees are to trust the system in which they 
report these negative workplace experiences, then 
accountability and transparency at all levels of leadership is 
essential. Finally, I will discuss a few of our 
recommendations. We suggested FEMA explore differences in 
climate between offices that had low and high rates of civil 
rights violations. We also suggested they increase 
accountability and transparency in dealing with violations and 
ensure that leaders at all levels understand how best to do so. 
We suggested they continue monitoring harassment and 
discrimination in the work force. Evidence that harassment and 
discrimination exists within their walls is unwelcomed to 
organizations unwilling to do the work to improve their 
workplace environment for their employees.
    FEMA is the only organization, to our knowledge, to 
confront such evidence voluntarily and publicly. This effort 
offers the opportunity to move the evidence-based needle not 
just for FEMA, but also more broadly for other organizations on 
appropriate interventions to reduce and prevent harassment and 
discrimination. Congressional support for such efforts is 
critical. Thank you, again, for the opportunity to appear 
before you today about this important subject. I look forward 
to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Sims follows:]
              Prepared Statement of Carra S. Sims \1\ \2\
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    \1\ The opinions and conclusions expressed in this testimony are 
the author's alone and should not be interpreted as representing those 
of the RAND Corporation or any of the sponsors of its research.
    \2\ The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops 
solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities 
throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more 
prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public 
interest. RAND's mission is enabled through its core values of quality 
and objectivity and its commitment to integrity and ethical behavior. 
RAND subjects its research publications to a robust and exacting 
quality-assurance process; avoids financial and other conflicts of 
interest through staff training, project screening, and a policy of 
mandatory disclosure; and pursues transparency through the open 
publication of research findings and recommendations, disclosure of the 
source of funding of published research, and policies to ensure 
intellectual independence. This testimony is not a research 
publication, but witnesses affiliated with RAND routinely draw on 
relevant research conducted in the organization.
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                            January 20, 2022
    Thank you Chairwoman Demings and Chairman Correa and Ranking 
Members Cammack and Meijer for allowing me to testify before this joint 
hearing of your subcommittees today. I am Carra Sims, a senior 
behavioral and social scientist with the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND 
Corporation and principal investigator and author of a study published 
in December 2020 on the prevalence and characteristics of sexual 
harassment, gender discrimination, racial/ethnic harassment, and 
racial/ethnic discrimination at the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
(FEMA).
    In 2018, FEMA executed an internal investigation into sexual 
harassment and misconduct in its senior leadership ranks. However, very 
unusually, they did not stop there. Unlike most organizations 
confronted with these issues, FEMA leaders chose to openly discuss and 
address the problems. As part of this effort, they reached out to the 
Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC)--which is 
operated by RAND for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)--to 
provide an independent and objective assessment across the organization 
of both the overall prevalence and the characteristics of harassment 
and discrimination at FEMA.
    We found that civil rights violations had affected many employees 
in the FEMA workforce. Twenty percent of employees categorized as 
having experienced a gender-based/sexual civil rights violation, and 
18.4 percent of employees categorized as having experienced a violation 
on the basis of race/ethnicity in the year prior to the survey. The 
risk of experiencing such a violation varied across FEMA offices, and 
employee perceptions of leadership behaviors that set a climate for 
harassment and civility varied by demographic group. Employees' actions 
after experiencing a civil rights violation reflect these perceptions; 
many did not report their concerns formally and for those that did, 
though some experienced a positive result, a substantial minority did 
not.
    In light of these findings, we recommended that the agency:
    1. explore differences in culture and climate between offices that 
        had low rates of civil rights violations and those with higher 
        rates
    2. explore interventions with leaders at all levels to ensure that 
        leaders understand how best to handle harassment and understand 
        their responsibility to address it
    3. reduce barriers to reporting
    4. increase accountability and transparency in dealing with 
        harassment and discrimination reports at all levels of 
        leadership
    5. continue monitoring harassment and discrimination in the 
        workforce.
    Now I'd like to go into a bit more detail about the study and its 
findings as I think the subcommittees might find the information 
helpful.
                         the study and findings
    After FEMA's 2018 internal investigation into sexual harassment and 
misconduct, FEMA leaders chose to openly discuss the problems and the 
need to develop and maintain a workplace in which all employees are 
treated with professionalism and respect. Although FEMA's investigation 
provided insights into the culture and misconduct in one FEMA office, 
it was not designed to provide a comprehensive account of harassment 
and discrimination across the organization; that was HSOAC's task.
    Working with FEMA,we prioritized key areas of focus for a survey 
that would provide them with an objective assessment of prevalence.
    We decided to focus on two classes of civil rights violation: 
First, harassment and discrimination on the basis of sex/gender, given 
the origin of the survey effort, and second, harassment and 
discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity.
    We did not want to use a lengthy survey that included every 
possible workplace problem because it might not be answered thoroughly 
and carefully, leading to biased results. Race/ethnicity was selected 
because both we and FEMA hypothesized that it would be the second-most 
common form of discrimination in the workplace, with gender-based 
concerns being the most common.\3\ We intended to provide a more 
complete description of the types of civil rights violations 
experienced by FEMA employees. (Civil rights violation is an umbrella 
term that includes harassment and discrimination on the basis of 
membership in any protected class.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ We used behaviorally-based survey measures to estimate the 
percentage of FEMA employees who had experienced at least one civil 
rights violation in the preceding year. These measures of harassment 
and discrimination first documented inappropriate workplace behaviors, 
followed by (where applicable) an assessment of additional legal 
requirements necessary for these experiences to rise to the level of 
civil rights violations. We categorized an employee as having 
experienced a civil rights violation if their survey answers indicated 
that someone from work had engaged in (1) harassing behavior that 
offended the respondent and was either persistent or severe or (2) 
behavior perceived as discriminatory that caused a workplace harm. This 
classification treats the survey respondents' answers as accurate. An 
independent investigation of the experiences described by respondents 
could discover that some people had experienced civil rights violations 
even though we had not classified them as having had one, while some 
people whom we classified as having experienced violations did not.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We also focused on perceptions of leadership climate for gender-
based and race/ethnicity-based harassment, assessing perceptions of 
leadership behaviors. Such behaviors play a critical role in 
establishing and maintaining climate.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ M.G. Ehrhart, B. Schneider, and W.H. Macey, Organizational 
Climate and Culture: An Introduction to Theory, Research, and Practice, 
New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2014.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We used multiple survey items to ensure that we covered key aspects 
of harassment climate. These key aspects included employees' 
perceptions related to the risk of making a complaint, perceptions of 
possible sanctions for the perpetrator, and perceptions that their 
concerns would be taken seriously.\5\ We assessed both perceptions of 
severe behaviors and examples of experiences that happen frequently and 
are sometimes considered less severe. We measured climate at two 
levels: The immediate supervisor and FEMA senior leadership. Finally, 
we examined general workplace incivility, which is low-intensity, 
deviant behavior that is not specifically directed at a protected class 
of employee but speaks to workplace climate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ C.L. Hulin, L.F. Fitzgerald, and F. Drasgow, ``Organizational 
Influences on Sexual Harassment,'' in M.S. Stockdale, ed., Sexual 
Harassment in the Workplace: Perspectives, Frontiers, and Response 
Strategies, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, Inc., 1996, pp. 
127-150.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    HSOAC fielded this survey in April and May 2019. Of the 21,982 FEMA 
personnel invited to participate, 8,946 responded (a 44.9-percent 
response rate). These responses were weighted to represent the FEMA 
population.
    Overall, civil rights violations affected many employees in the 
FEMA workforce, with 20.0 percent of employees categorized as having 
experienced a gender-based/sexual civil rights violation; women were 
more likely to experience a civil rights violation (26 percent) than 
were men (14 percent).
    As shown in Figure S.1, 18.4 percent of employees were categorized 
as having experienced a violation on the basis of race/ethnicity in the 
past year.


    Based on the 2019 survey, we estimated that about one in three FEMA 
employees experienced at least one gender-based/sexual or race/
ethnicity-based civil rights violation in the preceding year.
Risk Varies By Office
    Rates of civil rights violations varied across offices. For 
example, women in Mission Support and the Office of the Chief Financial 
Officer were less likely to be categorized as having experienced 
gender-based/sexual harassment than women in other offices. Similarly, 
the estimated rate of racial/ethnic harassment was lower in Mission 
Support and in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer than in other 
offices. Figure 2 shows one of these findings.


some employees mistrust leadership, and perceptions of work environment 
                                  vary
    Findings from our climate assessment suggest some areas of concern. 
Despite the majority of FEMA employees saying that leaders would 
respond appropriately to harassing behaviors, a fairly substantial 
proportion perceived leadership behaviors as neutral at best and 
perhaps actively harmful. FEMA employees' perceptions of their direct 
supervisors' responses to sexual and racial/ethnic harassment were 
consistently more positive than their perceptions of senior-level FEMA 
leaders' responses.
    For example, 24 percent of women indicated that they were neutral 
about, disagreed with, or strongly disagreed with a statement that 
their supervisors would report sexual harassment to the right FEMA 
authority, while approximately 28 percent of African-American employees 
had similar opinions about how their supervisors would handle racial/
ethnic harassment. Approximately 40 percent of women and 40 percent of 
African-American employees expressed similar sentiments about senior 
leaders. Figure 3 shows these results.


    In general, men had more positive perceptions of the work 
environment at FEMA than women did. This was true for perceptions of 
their supervisors, FEMA leader response to sexual harassment, and the 
general work environment climate.
    In addition, African-American employees tended to have less-
positive perceptions of the climate for racial/ethnic harassment and 
the general work environment climate than White or Hispanic employees 
had.
    To the extent that enforcement of workplace norms for civility and 
professional behavior relies on strong, consistent, and unambiguous 
support for appropriate norms, this suggests that FEMA employees 
perceive discrepancies.
Reporting Decisions Suggest That Barriers Exist
    FEMA employees' concerns are reflected in the actions that they 
took after a civil rights violation. Only one-third to one-half of FEMA 
employees who had experiences consistent with harassment or 
discrimination in the preceding year had reported the incident to a 
supervisor or manager or through another official channel (see Figure 
4).\6\ The top three barriers to reporting were that the employee ``did 
not think anything would be done'' about it, wanting to ``forget about 
it and move on,'' and fearing being ``labeled as a troublemaker.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ One important issue to consider when exploring why someone does 
or does not report harassment or discrimination is whether the victim 
considers the experience to be something worth reporting. This judgment 
often hinges on whether the victim labels the experience as harassment 
or as discrimination. It is not uncommon for people who describe 
experiences on a survey that are classified as harassment or 
discrimination to not label these experiences as civil rights 
violations--that is, not to consider their experiences as harassment or 
discrimination on the basis of a protected class. Most lay people are 
not familiar with laws surrounding Title VII or equal employment 
opportunity law and related regulations, and, although they might view 
their experiences as problematic, they were unlikely to be able to 
label them as civil rights violations (L.F. Fitzgerald, S. Swan, and K. 
Fischer, ``Why Didn't She Just Report Him? The Psychological and Legal 
Implications of Women's Responses to Sexual Harassment,'' Journal of 
Social Issues, Vol. 51, No. 1, 1995, pp. 117-138.).


    Many of the common barriers to reporting can be alleviated by 
ensuring that leadership at all levels knows what to do with a report 
and has the tools at hand to take action. Supervisors should also be 
held accountable for dealing with concerns of retaliation. Including an 
evaluation of how supervisors handle these issues as part of the 
performance review cycle is one possibility; it is unclear whether this 
is already a consistent part of that process at FEMA.
    Most FEMA employees who reported discrimination felt either neutral 
or dissatisfied with FEMA's response. This result could be related to 
the actions taken in response to the report: About 40 percent of those 
having reported gender (40.0 percent) or racial/ethnic discrimination 
(42.1 percent) were encouraged to drop the issue, and 39.6 percent of 
those who reported gender discrimination and 34.2 percent of those who 
reported racial/ethnic discrimination indicated that the person that 
they told had taken no action to improve the situation.
    Employees also noted frequent retaliation. Of those who reported 
harassment, 20 percent or more indicated having been subject to some 
form of retaliation. Of those who reported discrimination, 35 percent 
or more indicated having been subject to retaliation.
    If FEMA employees are to trust the system through which they must 
report negative workplace behaviors, then accountability and 
transparency at all levels of leadership should be increased so that 
employees have some sense that action will be taken to protect them 
from further negative workplace experiences.
Continue Monitoring Harassment and Discrimination in the Workforce
    This study provides a baseline of workplace harassment and 
discrimination at FEMA. Refielding the survey every 2 or 4 years would 
allow FEMA leadership to track the prevalence of civil rights 
violations in the workforce over time and would provide an objective 
measure of the effectiveness of any policy changes and prevention 
efforts.
                               conclusion
    The data from this survey has few comparators. Measures of 
violations are not the same across organizations, which makes direct 
comparisons with other organizations difficult. Differences in civil 
rights violation rates could be caused by a genuine difference in the 
prevalence of violations, or they could simply be a consequence of 
different measurement strategies.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ This is the case not only with measurement of harassment and 
discrimination but also with other measures that do not use the same 
items.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Moreover, organizations that are not required to measure the 
prevalence of violations are unlikely to do so, and they are even less 
likely to report their findings. Other than the military, which is 
required by law to assess the prevalence of these types of experiences, 
organizations that assess violations tend to be required to do so as 
part of the evidence-gathering process for a class-action lawsuit.
    Evidence that harassment and discrimination exist is unwelcome to 
organizations unwilling to do the work to create better working 
environments for their employees. FEMA is the only organization, to our 
knowledge, to confront such evidence voluntarily and publicly, 
demonstrating the agency's commitment to face issues head-on and work 
to improve. This effort highlights FEMA's commitment to transparency to 
the public and to its employees as it tackles these issues. It also 
offers the opportunity to advance the study of harassment and 
discrimination in the workplace and help solve issues elsewhere.
    Changing organizational culture and climate is no easy task, and 
prescriptions for how to do so tend to be so vague as to not be useful. 
A comprehensive and holistic set of interventions that incentivize 
professional and respectful workplace behavior could help leaders 
prevent and effectively address negative behaviors in the FEMA work 
environment. One vital component in organizational change, however, is 
measurement of the problem. Supporting organizations that measure 
transparently and share their findings helps establish an evidence 
basis for other organizations that wish to alleviate issues of 
harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Given the relative lack 
of comparators and empirical guidance,\8\ organizations that engage in 
interventions and report results are standard-bearers whose 
transparency can help society change for the better. FEMA now has an 
empirical estimate of the prevalence of gender-based/sexual and race/
ethnicity-based harassment and discrimination to serve as a yardstick 
against which to measure change efforts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ See, e.g., evidence presented in C.R. Feldblum and V.A. Lipnic, 
Select Task Force on Harassment in the Workplace, Washington, DC: U.S. 
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2016; and National Academies 
of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Sexual Harassment of Women: 
Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, 
and Medicine, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Chairwoman, Chairman, and Ranking Members, thank you again for the 
opportunity to appear before you today about this important subject. I 
look forward to answering your questions.

    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much for your testimony 
and thank you to all of the witnesses. I will remind the 
subcommittees that we will each have 5 minutes to question the 
panel. I will now recognize myself for questions and I 
appreciate the panel's indulgence as we are in the middle of 
votes.
    This question is for all of you. FEMA's work force has 
supported the Federal Government's response to a growing number 
of obligations, including numerous record-breaking disasters, 
Operation Allies Welcome, and the COVID-19 response. Just last 
week, FEMA was tasked with additional responsibilities in the 
on-going fight against COVID-19, including creating new testing 
sites and assessing National hospital bed capacity. FEMA's 
ever-increasing workload has caused a significant strain on the 
work force, resulting in employees leaving the agency at 
increased rates. What would you say FEMA can do or Congress can 
do to help prevent burn-out in the work force? Mr. Fugate, I 
will start with you.
    Mr. Fugate. Well, you know, part of the question is with 
all of these other things coming in, is this really FEMA's job? 
My answer is, yes. You created FEMA not just to respond to 
natural hazards. FEMA was created to respond to disasters that 
require the capabilities that FEMA has been blessed with, with 
the funding and capabilities that you have given them. So, the 
question is: Should you take things away from FEMA? I think 
that is the wrong answer.
    I think the better answer is how do we make sure FEMA has 
the work force required to do this? They lean heavily on the 
ability to fund out of the Stafford Act, the Reservists, and 
their CORE, which are their full-time not permanent employees 
that are termed employees that they use in disaster response. 
But I would also go back and look at your career base. FEMA has 
not substantially grown since Hurricane Katrina, yet the 
workload has been growing quite rapidly. So, it is always a 
touchy issue when you talk about growing the work force, you 
need more people. The reality is FEMA is going to need to look 
at staffing requirements going forward with the mission set to 
frequency of disasters in the career work force. Balance that 
with the funding from the Stafford Act employees that are the 
CORE and the Reservists and making the Reservists more 
practical as a retention function, again, going back to the 
benefits. As the GAO pointed out, and I tried to do this and 
found out I couldn't do this, is how do you train them when 
they are not deployed to a disaster? Because they are paid by 
disaster, not out of a general fund that could be used for all 
of those points.
    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much. Mr. Currie.
    Mr. Currie. I mean, I agree with a lot of what has been 
said. But I think it actually, some of this is a good thing for 
FEMA because they are reliable. The reason they get asked to do 
so much is because they have the authority, the funding, the 
relationships in the State and local level to execute logistics 
like in the pandemic response. Next to the military, there is 
nobody better. So, in many ways it is a good thing because it 
means their response function is working pretty well. But I 
think the bottom line is that the work force structure has not 
been transformed and evolved to fit what we are asking them to 
do right now.
    But I also think there are multiple sides to this. I mean, 
there is the hiring and the flexibilities piece of like what do 
we need? Then how do we get what we need and how does it need 
to function? But internally too, you mentioned the retention 
issue. It is just as important, you know, if we are going to 
hire 6,000 in the last few years like they had, the internal 
functioning better work pretty well too. Or else you are not 
going to retain these people. It doesn't matter if you hire 
6,000 people if you lose 3,000 of them.
    So, I think we have to look at all of it. That is why I 
think there needs to be a more holistic transformation effort 
looked at in this regard and figure out, you know, what maybe 
legislative changes might be needed. What can FEMA do on its 
own? Maybe there are special authorities similar to what has 
been done in the past with the National Guard or the military 
reserves that can be done to help some of these training and 
deployment challenges that we face. So, I think that, you know, 
it has got to be a multi-faceted approach.
    Chairwoman Demings. Ms. Sims? Yes, Ms. Sims.
    Ms. Sims. Hi. I will agree to the holistic approach. I had 
a pretty specific study but, you know, making sure the backend 
harassment and discrimination have been linked to retention. 
So, you know, alleviating these kinds of workplace challenges 
also helps keep your work force intact. I see we are running 
out of time, so.
    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you all so much. I will now go to 
the gentlewoman from Iowa, Mrs. Miller-Meeks, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you, Chair Demings. This is a 
question for Mr. Fugate and Mr. Currie. From responding to 
disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic to assisting with UACs 
along the border and assisting in the resettlement of Afghan 
refugees, FEMA has a number of competing priorities. How are 
these competing and added responsibilities affecting the FEMA 
work force?
    Mr. Fugate. Ma'am, I will start first. Again, when you look 
at all the things that FEMA is doing, the one that takes the 
most people is responding to disasters. That is the bulk of the 
work force. What FEMA is doing in the coordination of the COVID 
is less about deploying people but using headquarters and 
regional functions to coordinate that and coordinate other 
agency staff. FEMA is not actually sending their people into 
hospitals. They are coordinating HHS and other resources on 
behalf of the Governors. That is something they are built and 
set up to do.
    Again, when I was in FEMA, we dealt with the Southwest 
Border. We were given the mission by the White House to do the 
unaccompanied children. It was a skill set we had because it 
was mass care taking care of children. So, while those seem to 
be very large operations, it turned out that in an organization 
of almost 20,000, what you will find is it is a task, but it is 
not overwhelming. The bulk of the large force of FEMA is 
actually tied up in responding to and more importantly, what 
was pointed out, is the recovery from disasters for years. 
Thank you.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Mr. Currie.
    Mr. Currie. Sure, thank you. If I remember right, from 
talking to you before, I believe you come from a public health 
background, right? So, I will use the COVID example with FEMA. 
So, something that was never envisioned 3 or 4 years ago with a 
pandemic like this is that we would have, you know, almost 60 
Federally-declared disasters across the States, territories, 
Tribes for a public health emergency. So, just in that alone, 
FEMA is processing--I don't have an exact number, but the last 
one I have seen is, you know, well over 30, maybe 40,000 
grantees for the pandemic just on grant reimbursements alone 
for PPE, COVID costs, schools, you name it. So, you add that on 
top of what I said before, which is like almost 1,000 prior 
disaster recovery declarations where they are still processing 
public assistance claims, the grants. That alone is just 
astronomical.
    I actually don't think the Afghan and the border tasking, 
that is more the response side of the house. They deploy 
quickly. They use their resources. They get out. I think what 
we see is this long tail on recovery and processing projects. 
By the way, this is probably what you hear most frustration 
about at the State and local level is, you know, where is my 
grant money? Where is my reimbursements? Why are we fighting 
over this? But this is what the majority of the workload there 
is dealing with. I don't think there is a clear understanding, 
as Mr. Fugate said this up-front, that what they are actually 
doing outside of just the immediate response, is not quite, I 
think, what people think.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Yes, and I thank you for that. You are 
correct, Mr. Currie, I am a physician, a military veteran, and 
I do come from a public health background as a State director. 
I found it unusual to have put FEMA in charge of vaccine and 
vaccine clinics. They don't have medical personnel. I can tell 
you my local public health agencies with whom I am in contact 
with, and I did vaccine clinics in all 24 counties, that, you 
know, they have the wherewithal and the knowledge to have been 
able to have done that and to have done that effectively 
without increased burden and costs to FEMA.
    I also find it interesting and I am not sure how you all 
feel about it, but in processing, when I went to Quantico and 
learned about the processing of Afghan refugees, all of the 
Afghan refugees get vaccinations for all childhood 
immunizations. They are COVID-19 tested and then they are 
offered the COVID-19 vaccine, but it is not mandatory. But yet, 
on our Southern Border, as you are processing and being 
required to help process people on the Southern Border, there 
is no COVID-19 testing. So, I am not sure if you feel, that the 
CBP feel, that they are put at risk that your agents are also 
put at risk in helping to manage those coming in our country 
either through Afghanistan or through the Southern Border. It 
is OK, you don't need to respond. Thank you, Madam Chair, I 
yield back.
    Chairwoman Demings. The gentlewoman yields back. The Chair 
now recognizes the Chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight, 
Management, and Accountability, the gentleman from California, 
Mr. Correa, for 5 minutes.
    Chairman Correa. Madam Chair, thank you very much. I want 
to thank our witnesses. Some excellent presentations. You know, 
I think of FEMA, I think of other Government agencies, esprit 
de corps, just serving because they believe in the mission. 
They believe in service for our country. They believe in saving 
people, rescuing people in the most dark time of crisis. They 
are veterans. You have a lot of veterans that join FEMA. You 
have a lot of service corps individuals. So, you have, I would 
say, a very envious work force that are there because they 
believe. So, given the challenges that you have, which you are 
overextended, multi-missioned. Sometimes you get controversy. 
Again, I just heard a minute ago that the locals just want to 
get their grants and please move on. But if you got a worker, 
he or she, coming in there with the best intentions, then they 
experience civil right violations, sexual harassment, it kind-
of makes things a little difficult.
    So, my question, and this is a general one for all of you. 
You can be brief in your answer, given that I only have a few 
moments here. What can we do to assure those individuals that 
are victimized that once they, you know, essentially blow the 
whistle, and turn somebody over, how can we make sure that 
those violators, those offenders are held accountable for their 
action? How can we give the incentive to let folks know if 
somebody wrongs you in this great gold-plated FEMA agency, we 
are going to take of you? Thank you.
    Mr. Fugate. Well, this is Craig. I think you really need to 
ask this of FEMA Administrator Criswell because I think she has 
taken the RAND study. She has implemented an action plan. She 
is doing things that I think get to your issue. They are 
publishing in their weekly newsletter to their employees those 
sexual harassment cases that are being disciplined. That has 
never been done before. Again, I think they are trying to bring 
a level of transparency that has never been done before. This 
won't be cured overnight. But the steps they are taking are 
concrete. They have asked RAND to come back and do multiple 
surveys. Not just do one and done. But to see if these steps 
they are taking is changing that culture so they can continue 
that feedback loop of making sure that when you come to FEMA, 
you are there to do your job, not deal with, as you point out, 
sir, the other issues, the harassment, just a lot of stuff that 
is just not tolerated in the organization. I think the 
administrator has made that clear from her first day. Her 
approach to that is going to be very hands-on and very 
transparent.
    Chairman Correa. Thank you.
    Ms. Sims. Based on the recommendations from our study, we 
did say increasing accountability and transparency and make 
sure leadership at all levels, including those who are 
deployed, as we have heard, may not have the training that they 
need necessarily to begin to start. Make sure they have the 
training so that they know how to handle these kinds of things 
so that they can address them when they happen. FEMA I do think 
is doing a rolling-out the plan and implementing it over time. 
That is what it will take. It is simple, but it is not easy. It 
is something that will take a while.
    Chairman Correa. Usually, the simplest solutions are the 
toughest ones to implement. They are usually the most 
effective. Mr. Currie.
    Mr. Currie. Yes, this requires cultural change, which takes 
time. But there are building blocks to cultural change. I mean, 
I have been encouraged to see some of the things that have 
happened recently. I agree that the way you solve this is not 
by burying it. They have been very transparent, very open, 
which is a very humble approach to this, which is necessary. 
But there is also very specific EEOC best practices that we 
have seen across Government that are done. For instance, they 
set up the Office of Professional Responsibility, which reports 
to the administrator. They are neutral. They are sort-of a 
third party within the agency. That was done to set up 
transparency and legitimacy to these harassment reviews. So, 
people don't see them as influenced by other managers.
    So, there are lots of pieces to this. I think they are 
doing all the right things. We are just, you know, we are 
looking at it right now and I think we are just going to have 
to see what the impact of this is, you know, year 1 or 2 after 
these changes have been made.
    Chairman Correa. Let me just add that I think you are 
right, it is a cultural societal issue. It is not only one at 
FEMA, but I think society as a whole. We are trying to get 
there. So, all of us are working together. But again, our 
offer, as the Chair has said, if you need any help from us 
legislatively, please let us know. Thank you very much. Madam 
Chair, with that, I yield.
    Chairwoman Demings. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 
now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Payne, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Payne. Am I muted?
    Chairwoman Demings. We can hear you. Mr. Payne?
    Mr. Payne. Is that better? There we go.
    Chairwoman Demings. Yes. We can hear you.
    Mr. Payne. OK, thank you. Good morning, Mr. Fugate. It is 
good to see you again, been a little while. Let's see. In 2020, 
GAO released a report that discussed FEMA's staffing shortages 
in 2017 and 2018. A period when multiple hurricanes made 
landfall in less than a month. At the time, FEMA has to 
redeploy personnel from one disaster to the next. Mr. Fugate 
and Mr. Currie, what impact do these redeployments and lack of 
staffing have on FEMA's ability to carry out its mission? What 
impact does this have on employee morale and performance?
    Mr. Fugate. Well, I will start and it is good to see you, 
Congressman. When you looked at what FEMA had to do in 2017, 
with the 3 major hurricanes, and again in 2018, I was very 
familiar with that all the way back in Florida where I got hit 
by 4 hurricanes in one season. So, I know this from the local 
and State perspective, as well as the Federal perspective. You 
are always going to go and focus on the immediate response, 
life safety, the needs of the public, the individual assistance 
programs. Those get the highest priority, which means you are 
going to pull people from the recovery. So, what it does is it 
delays communities from recovering. It delays the funding that 
FEMA provides for communities to rebuild. It results in local 
governments and States having to borrow money because they 
can't get reimbursed fast enough. I know in Florida I talked to 
officials from Monroe County that were having to borrow money 
to pay for Hurricane Irma response because it took too long to 
reimburse for debris.
    So, it really is FEMA taking what they have. It is always 
focused on life safety, the individual assistance, and 
immediate response at the expense of the recovery, which both 
cost the local communities, but ultimately the Federal taxpayer 
more money in overhead, administrative costs, mistakes, and 
delays, and recovery.
    Mr. Payne. And the morale?
    Mr. Fugate. You know, again, I think the morale piece is 
when you can't get breaks. When you are just doing serial 
response and the same people are getting called out. I think 
that is one of the things Administrator Criswell on her first 
day when she talked to folks and said, look, we are busy, but 
when we can get down time, I want people to take some down 
time. We don't have to be at work every day, if you have that 
ability. The problem is, is disasters dictate that.
    Another interesting thing is what I found in FEMA, and this 
was kind-of a number I was always fascinated with, we lost more 
people in the first 3 years of their employment at FEMA than at 
any other time frame. I am thinking a lot of it came about 
because they were there for the response phase. They didn't 
necessarily realize they had signed up for a grant phase of 
long-term recovery of sitting in offices processing paperwork. 
That wasn't what they thought they were signing up for. So, I 
think----
    Mr. Payne. Got you.
    Mr. Fugate [continuing]. That is another challenge they 
face.
    Mr. Payne. OK, thank you. Mr. Currie?
    Mr. Currie. Yes, I mean, it is not just about numbers, 
Congressman Payne. I mean, if it was just about numbers, I 
think they would be doing pretty well. You know, they have 
hired what, 6,000 people over the last 5 years. They have got 
22,000 people sort-of on staff. But I think there is a 
misconception that they are just all those people are waiting 
around for a disaster to happen then they deploy everyone. The 
truth is is that most of that work force is already committed 
to something else in one of those prior 1,000 disaster 
recoveries that are still going on. So, at any given time, they 
might have, you know, 30 to 40 percent of their work force 
actually able to be deployed when something actually happens.
    So, it is not just things that are going to happen in the 
future. It is all the cumulative things that are still going on 
from the past, and then you add on that what happened like in 
2017, when you had 3 sequential hurricanes and the huge 
wildfires in the West. Then you are overwhelmed because you 
really only started with having 30 to 40 percent of your work 
force available.
    So, I think we have got to figure something out where, you 
know, we are able to scale-up for those kind of situations in a 
much better way. I think it is the process issue of like what 
are all those people working on from past disaster recoveries? 
The grants, the paperwork, you know, there has got to be a way 
to streamline that so we can focus folks on what we want them 
to really be focused on.
    Mr. Payne. Thank you. Madam Chair, I will yield back. Thank 
you.
    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much. The gentleman yields 
back. I am going to recognize myself for additional questions. 
Mr. Currie, after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, one 
reason for the delays in disaster assistance was an 
insufficient number of bilingual FEMA employees. FEMA's 
guidance required all communications to be in Spanish, yet the 
agency did not have enough emergency responders who could meet 
the requirement. So, could you talk a little bit and I know 
everybody probably can clearly understand how important the 
cultural competency is to having an appropriate response, but 
just talk about some of the challenges in recruiting a 
bilingual work force.
    Mr. Currie. It is a great question. The situation in Puerto 
Rico was so extreme just because of the bilingual needs there 
and the size of that disaster. So, there is no doubt they 
didn't have the capacity they needed to handle something like 
that when it happened. One of the things FEMA does is they, you 
know, they try to hire locally under the Stafford Act to 
address these challenges when they come up. They did that in 
Puerto Rico. They hired thousands of local folks, you know, for 
these missions. That is great to address this need. But the 
other challenge is is that these folks have no experience with 
FEMA programs or, you know, in some cases, emergency 
management.
    So, you know, there are ways to try to address this 
challenge to help the linguistics issue. But it is also hard to 
just have, you know, a work force kind-of sitting around ready 
for any contingency that might happen. You know, in this 
country we have so many languages spoken. So, depending on 
where the disaster hits, it is really difficult to do that. So, 
again, it is this issue of are we ready to scale up or scale 
down when this is needed? There may be other things to look at 
besides only hiring folks that speak Spanish or other 
languages. Maybe there are other resources they could bring in 
from other agencies or partnerships where they can scale up 
when it is necessary.
    Chairwoman Demings. Yes, thank you so much for that. You 
are correct, there are so many languages in our country, which 
is a beautiful thing. But I do think that Spanish is one of 
those prevalent languages in our country. Mr. Fugate, anything 
you would like to add to that?
    Mr. Fugate. Well, again, in Florida, we face language 
issues. It is not only Spanish. We have Creole languages. In 
New York City when we were dealing Superstorm Sandy, we had 
literally dozens of major languages that we were having to deal 
with. So, again, what GAO says, we would hire local people to 
act as translators. It gives us several things. No. 1, they 
know the communities, they know the neighborhoods, they know a 
lot of the underlying issues. I think this is why a big part of 
what I pushed at FEMA was always hire local and buy local as 
much as you can to help the local economy.
    I wouldn't expect the new hires in Puerto Rico to run the 
programs. What I would expect them to do is to be partnered 
with somebody at FEMA who knew the programs to then integrate 
that with the local officials, act as the translators. But also 
give them a better understanding of the context of what they 
are dealing with. I have always found that local people 
understand issues in a way that somebody coming from outside of 
that community just never grasp. So, that is why I put it a big 
premium. But it has got to be done in a way that it is subject-
matter experts tied with that local hire to be effective. It 
can't just be a hire the local person and turn them loose and 
expect the programs to be administered.
    Chairwoman Demings. Do either of you know of any 
adjustments that were made? Mr. Currie, you are absolutely 
correct. Puerto Rico did provide some unique challenges. I had 
an opportunity to visit the island in 2017, with a 
Congressional delegation. You know, once you experience the 
challenges in terms of the language barriers, the lack of 
bilingual employees, were there any adjustments that were made 
or recommendations that were made to prepare for the next time?
    Mr. Currie. Yes, and I too, I have been there 5 times since 
Hurricane Maria as well. I have gotten to understand the 
situation pretty well. I think the bottom line is right now, I 
think they are really well-prepared for something that is going 
to happen because they have so many people they have hired 
locally. A lot of those people have converted over to full-time 
or reserve or CORE positions and gone to other parts of the 
country or stayed there in Puerto Rico are now managing the 
program and they have the experience. So, I think their 
capacity level is really high in terms of preparedness to deal 
with something else.
    Now, honestly, it has taken 4 years to get there. It was a 
struggle and it was not pretty the first couple years. It has 
gotten better. So, I think they are in pretty good shape to 
handle, you know, response to disasters that may happen. I 
think the challenge in Puerto Rico has more to do with the 
financial situation of the recovery and the funding that is 
necessary to rebuild all the damaged infrastructure because 
they haven't even really, you know, started to tackle the long-
term projects yet. A lot of that has to do with the financial 
condition of Puerto Rico.
    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much for that. Ms. Sims, 
anything at all that you would like to add to this particular 
question?
    Ms. Sims. No, thank you.
    Chairwoman Demings. OK, thank you. Mr. Fugate, last year 
the union that represents FEMA, the American Federation of 
Government Employees, sent a letter to the incoming FEMA 
administrator, which highlighted that the FEMA work force were 
comprised of only 5,000 full-time employees out of 26,000, 
roughly, total employees. Over the past few years, we have 
witnessed numerous disasters including hurricanes, floods, 
fires, tornadoes, and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. With 
year-round disasters, we need year-round employees who can 
respond to those disasters. Could you talk a little bit, would 
it benefit or how would it benefit FEMA to change the 
composition of its work force to hire more permanent, full-time 
employees? Or do you believe that there should be a significant 
contingency of part-time employees as well to be able to 
fulfill the mission?
    Mr. Fugate. I think you are going to have to have all of 
that but the ratios are wrong. I think you need to go back to--
originally FEMA deployed permanent work force as the primary 
disaster responders. The problem was they were staying out so 
long, the other work wasn't getting done. That really created 
this move toward almost all disasters being handled by the 
nonpermanent work force with the permanent work force not 
deploying.
    When I got to FEMA, it turned out there was people in the 
permanent work force that didn't even have emergency functions 
in their position descriptions and legally, couldn't be 
deployed against their will. Even though FEMA requires every 
employee, now, to do that. When I got there even though the 
statement said you are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week 
deployed, the vast majority of FEMA staff had never been 
deployed and were not allowed to deploy or it wasn't in their 
position description. We changed that. But I think it is 
important that people that, in my experience, was when the FEMA 
folks deployed, the permanent work force, it not only gave us 
additional personnel in the field, it was more important to the 
overall FEMA's mission because they got to see the things they 
were administrating at headquarters in the field and understand 
what the challenges were. It made them better, including our--
what was interesting was our grants people. As you pointed out, 
all the funding that FEMA provides through the grants program, 
the Homeland Security grants and the, you know, the funding 
there to help build preparedness. It was amazing that the 
grants people had never seen the outcome of their work. When 
they went to Superstorm Sandy, they saw all that equipment and 
all that capability for the first time deployed and they were 
going, I never realized we had that big of an impact. I said 
that response wouldn't have occurred without the funding you 
administered.
    So, I think the permanent work force needs to be part of 
disaster response. It needs to be built into their DNA. We must 
be able to continue the existing work. So, I think we need to 
grow that permanent work force. We need to make it where they 
do deploy more frequently so they have that connection between 
their mission and what is done in the field. But also balance 
that with there is no way to have that big of a work force that 
may not have a lot of disasters to go to using the CORE and the 
reserve work force to be a balanced response. So, we have surge 
work force capabilities, but we also are not excluding the 
permanent work force from being part of the disaster response 
team.
    Chairwoman Demings. You know, Mr. Fugate, I was hoping that 
the Chair of the full committee was going to be able to join us 
today. He is not. So, the question is: When you testified 
before the committee in October 2015, Chairman Thompson asked 
whether our disaster response work force was as robust as it 
would need to be to respond to a disaster on the scale of 
Hurricane Katrina as we talk about work force numbers. At the 
time, you told the committee that we are not there. In 2019, 
Chairman Thompson asked then FEMA Administrator Gaynor a 
similar question. He responded that FEMA had a deficit of a few 
thousand. We keep hearing time and time again that FEMA does 
not have enough staff and we have also talked about some of the 
challenges for that. What do we need to do or how can we help 
FEMA to be better able to recruit, and sometimes that is the 
easy part, but to retain more employees?
    Mr. Fugate. Well, my experience tells me that people that 
are attracted to FEMA, who don't really understand FEMA, are 
attracted to what they see as the response role. It turns out 
the response role is one of the things that most people at FEMA 
and the permanent full-time jobs do the least of. So, there is 
often a mismatch between expectations and reality. I think we 
need to do a better job of doing that. But I also think we need 
to provide to the permanent work force more opportunities to be 
in disaster response without necessarily taking away from the 
day-to-day mission, which means better staff, more staff, and 
more flexibility there.
    But I think the last piece goes back to the Reserve work 
force. If we expect to have well-trained quality folks, we have 
to do something besides only dealing with it when we employ 
them in a disaster. This is something that Congress needs to 
look at. Provide FEMA the authority through Stafford Act funds, 
to train Reservists not tied to a disaster so that they get 
minimal training on a reoccurring basis to improve retention 
and make better-trained Reservists before they are deployed. 
Also, look at other incentives that the military reserve has to 
protect those people who may come off of existing jobs to help 
in disasters so that we can attract the best quality folks, 
best retention, and good benefits.
    But I think just one thing, if you just got the Stafford 
Act amended where FEMA could train Reservists not tied to a 
disaster response, but out of what they generally refer to as 
the DSR surge account, so that it would be a reoccurring 
training. Including things like harassment training, which 
turns out a lot of these folks don't have any of that until 
they show up at the job site and then that is hard to get as a 
priority when you are dealing with everything you are faced in 
the first 30 days of a disaster. But I think this is one thing 
that would help. Clarify and give FEMA the authority to use the 
funding in the disaster relief fund to train Reservists outside 
of being deployed to a specific disaster.
    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much for that. I do ask 
unanimous consent to submit into the record a letter from the 
American Federation of Government Employees. So moved.
    [The information follows:]
 Letter From the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO 
                                 (AFGE)
                                  January 19, 2022.
The Honorable Val Demings,
Chairwoman, Emergency Preparedness, Response, & Recovery Subcommittee, 
        House Homeland Security Committee, H2-176 Ford House Office 
        Building, Washington, DC 20515.
The Honorable Kat Cammack,
Ranking Member, Emergency Preparedness, Response, & Recovery 
        Subcommittee, House Homeland Security Committee, H2-176 Ford 
        House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515.
The Honorable Lou Correa,
Chairman, Oversight, Management, & Accountability Subcommittee, House 
        Homeland Security Committee, H2-176 Ford House Office Building, 
        Washington, DC 20515.
The Honorable Peter Meijer,
Ranking Member, Oversight, Management, & Accountability Subcommittee, 
        House Homeland Security Committee, H2-176 Ford House Office 
        Building, Washington, DC 20515.
    Dear Chairs Thompson, Demings, and Correa, Ranking Members Katko, 
Cammack, Meijer and Members of the subcommittees: On behalf of the 
American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE), which 
represents more than 700,000 Federal and District of Columbia 
government employees, including 5,000 within the Federal Emergency 
Management Agency (FEMA), we appreciate the subcommittee addressing how 
FEMA can build a workforce prepared and ready to respond to National 
disasters. We thank you for your support of a strong Federal emergency 
management program and your recognition of the importance of a 
professional, apolitical civil service supporting the American public 
during natural disasters.
    Our country has been devastated by one of the most active disaster 
seasons in recent memory. FEMA employees have responded to hundreds of 
disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic, wildfires, hurricanes, 
tornadoes, and record flooding. FEMA employees work to make victims 
whole again after natural and human-created disasters. FEMA first 
responders stay on the ground sometimes for months or years to ensure 
that the Americans affected by natural and human-made disasters can 
return to normalcy and rebuild their lives. FEMA urban search-and-
rescue teams extricate survivors and victims from burning cars and 
flooded homes. FEMA safety officers ensure downed power lines do not 
electrocute survivors and hazardous substances in flood waters do not 
sicken communities. FEMA firefighters and police officers work hand-in-
hand with State and local emergency management agencies to suppress 
fires and prevent crime. FEMA claims adjusters work to compensate 
victims after their homes have been destroyed. FEMA logisticians 
compile data and predict when and where future disasters will occur and 
how to prevent them. FEMA grant and contracting officers ensure 
community needs are met in the aftermath of destruction.
    Most FEMA employees are non-permanent. Out of a workforce of more 
than 20,000 total employees, only about 5,000 are full-time permanent 
employees. FEMA employees are over-worked, under-resourced, and 
frequently deployed to multiple disaster zones without adequate 
recuperation time.
    In 1988 the Stafford Act created two sets of non-permanent 
employees to be hired during disasters, including (1) Cadre of On-Call 
Recovery/Response Employees (CORE) and (2) Disaster Response Workers 
(DRW) Temporary Workers. CORE and DRW employees are brought on using an 
expedited hiring process during disasters. For the purposes of this 
letter, CORE and DRW employees will be referred to as Stafford Act 
employees.
    Although Stafford Act employees were intended to supplement 
permanent employees during short-term disasters, in practice Stafford 
Act employees often serve for much longer than the 2- to 4-year periods 
specified in their contracts, sometimes for 10 years or more. The 
excessive use of Stafford Act hiring results in permanent FEMA staff 
positions going unfilled for extended periods.
    Stafford Act employees should be deployed to disaster zones for 
specified time periods to respond to specific disasters. These 
positions were not designed to assist or replace permanent full-time 
employees for non-disaster work. However, this frequently occurs 
because of permanent staff vacancies within FEMA, with Stafford Act 
employees performing work outside of their job descriptions. The 
excessive use of Stafford Act employees means that personnel are 
constantly being shifted from one disaster site to the next, harming 
retention and recruitment efforts, the inevitable result of grueling 
hours and low morale.
    Instead, FEMA should hire more permanent full-time employees who 
are emergency management, safety, and program management professionals 
with appropriate skills and expertise. Such action will benefit the 
agency and its employees, including qualified Stafford Act employees 
who could transition into appropriate permanent positions.
    In contrast to full-time or temporary Title 5 employees, Stafford 
Act employees lack civil service rights and protections that help to 
improve workplace safety, labor-management relations, and 
communication, and to prevent harassment and discrimination in the 
workplace. When Stafford Act employees experience discrimination, 
harassment, or other inappropriate treatment, they have few avenues for 
pursuing remedies. Without union representation, Stafford Act employees 
lack effective mechanisms for reporting, resolving, or de-escalating 
workplace conflicts and grievances.
    Following a high-profile harassment case involving a FEMA senior 
executive in 2018, a study by the RAND Corporation revealed that 29 
percent of FEMA employees experienced a civil rights violation during a 
single year. Fewer than half of these employees formally reported these 
incidents to management, fearing in part that nothing would be done. A 
more recent Department of Homeland Security OIG report from September 
2021 found that one-third of employees had experienced sexual 
harassment or misconduct but did not report it, believing that the 
incidents would not be properly investigated. The OIG found that FEMA 
had a fragmentary record for investigating and taking corrective action 
in some 305 cases of harassment and misconduct that were reported to 
agency officials. The agency's 2021 Culture Improvement Action Plan has 
several laudable goals, which will be much more easily achieved if the 
agency transitions away from the excessive use of non-permanent 
employees who have completely inadequate workplace protections.
    FEMA's workload is constantly increasing, as the Nation faces an 
unprecedented onslaught of disasters. For FEMA to succeed, it is 
critical that Congress and the Administration prioritize hiring more 
full-time permanent Title 5 employees. If they do so, FEMA will be a 
stronger, more agile, and responsive agency in protecting the American 
public from national disasters.
            Sincerely,
                                          Julie N. Tippens,
       Director, Legislative Political and Mobilization Department.

    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you, Mr. Fugate. You spoke about 
harassment. Ms. Sims, the RAND 2020 Report highlights several 
challenges--I think we talked a little bit about those--FEMA 
faces in the effort to create a more inclusive work force, 
including barriers that can prevent employees from reporting 
incidents of harassment and discrimination. Can you describe 
just some of the barriers while conducting your survey, if 
there were any, with FEMA employees?
    Ms. Sims. So, I guess I would say having the reserve work 
force as it was, was not necessarily a barrier, but it was a 
challenge, right? Because obviously, they are a huge part of 
what FEMA does and we definitely wanted to get their 
perspective, especially since there was some indication that 
possibly during deployments, they might experience challenges 
there. So, you know, it was key to get a good estimate of 
prevalence across the organization to be able to recruit them.
    Now, FEMA did help us out during the course of the survey. 
They sent an email through their system, their DTS system, to 
FEMA Reservists so that they could know to check their FEMA 
email. Because we sent the invitations with unique links to 
FEMA employees in emails. But it was interesting, you know, we 
worked with FEMA to try and get Reservists paid to take the 
survey because they are doing FEMA's work when they are taking 
the survey, right? They are helping FEMA understand what their 
experience was. That was a challenge because there was no 
functionality in the sense of if they were paid, if they 
claimed that time, then FEMA would know they took the survey 
and we were also trying to protect their confidentiality. So, 
there are some tricky things there with the reserve work force.
    Chairwoman Demings. OK. Thank you so very much. Mr. Currie 
or Mr. Fugate, anything you would like to add to, you know, how 
we can better interact with the FEMA employees because of the 
large numbers and the Reservist status to get the information 
that we need? Mr. Sims.
    Ms. Sims. Ms. Sims or Mr. Currie?
    Chairwoman Demings. Oh, I am sorry. I am sorry. Mr. Currie.
    Mr. Currie. Sorry. No, I agree. I think this--you can 
probably hear this issue of how do you pay and train your 
intermittent work force is a challenge. You know, I am not--I 
think the military analogy is somewhat useful. I mean, I don't 
want to say that system is perfect, but you know, back when the 
Reservists in the National Guard employee flexibilities and 
titles were developed, it was to address this same issue. You 
know, how do we--we have our permanent military and but how do 
we scale up when we have a need? That includes not just hiring 
people and training people, but how do you deploy them given 
their specific skill sets? Very similar at FEMA. I mean, I 
think we need a relook at this whole system. There has been 
some things done. I mean, for example, the DRRA bill back in 
2018, gave FEMA flexibility to more easily convert CORE and 
Reservists to full-time positions, without having to rego 
through the whole Federal hiring process, which is not easy. 
So, I mean, there has been some things around the margins. But, 
I mean, you have got to look at this in totality from hiring to 
on-boarding to training to retention.
    Chairwoman Demings. Mr. Fugate.
    Mr. Fugate. Yes, some of this is going to require a lot of 
work. I think the simplest thing is to--and this can be done in 
the budget process. So, as we are working on the next budget, 
this is really a simple fix if you can get people to agree to 
it. Give FEMA the authority to pay for Reservists outside of 
them being deployed to a disaster. So, if they already have 
that 2 days a month and 2 weeks a year if they are not 
deployed, they get training, the things like these surveys 
don't become an issue of trying to get people to take a survey, 
yet risk identifying them because they are getting paid.
    It also goes back to better retention. This is something we 
can do right now. You have this in the budget process. It would 
be an addition to the authorizing language, the appropriations 
language, to give FEMA the ability to do this. I don't think 
this would require new funding. I think you fund the disaster 
relief fund at adequate levels, you are going to have to do 
some additional adjustments based upon the level of disasters. 
But I don't think this is a huge challenge of new money that 
has to be found, new authority that has to be found. It just 
needs to clarify that FEMA has the authority to use the relief 
fund to train Reservists outside of a specific disaster.
    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much. The Chair will now 
recognize the gentlewoman from Nevada, Ms. Titus, for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Titus. Well, thank you so much. Mr. Currie, over the 
past year, FEMA has placed COVID-19 surge response teams in my 
district, and they have been going door-to-door canvasing 
efforts to try to increase vaccination rates. I represent one 
of the most diverse districts in the country and I wonder if 
you could address whether FEMA makes any attempt to send people 
who match the neighborhood so that they can be more effective. 
Also, since the Biden administration has highlighted diversity 
as one of the goals for FEMA, how can you all reach out to 
better hire a diverse work force that looks like the people in 
my community?
    Mr. Currie. Yes, ma'am, thank you. So, based on the work 
that we have done evaluating FEMA, I mean, we know that they do 
attempt at the regional level to deploy people that have the 
background of that area and speak the language if that is 
necessary to try to better connect with those communities. They 
absolutely do that. I don't have data with me on how well they 
do that or any metrics, but I do know that is a priority.
    On the hiring side, I think at FEMA, and not just at FEMA, 
but at DHS, I mean, they take hiring through the lens of 
diversity very seriously. I have seen their human capital 
monitoring and metrics, which, you know, where they monitor by 
gender, by race, by ethnicity, by language, by veteran status, 
you know, who they hire, who they retain. I mean, there is a 
lot of focus on that right now. I think even more so over the 
last year as the Executive Orders have come out about, you 
know, trying to promote additional diversity in the Federal 
work force.
    Ms. Titus. Do you know if you have reached to the 
historical Black colleges or minority-serving institutions as 
part of the recruiting process?
    Mr. Currie. No, ma'am, I don't know if FEMA has done that 
because we haven't looked at that.
    Ms. Titus. Well, I think that would be a good idea. That 
would be a way to attract some bright young people and get some 
diversity at the same time. Speaking of young people, tell me 
about the FEMA Corps that is that service program between FEMA 
and AmeriCorps that is trying to recruit young people to get 
engaged when they are--before they are ready for a job to 
perhaps learn the ropes and then choose that as a career.
    Mr. Currie. Yes, no, and this is something that at GAO we 
looked at this right after Hurricane Sandy, when FEMA Corps was 
first rolled out. I know when it first came out, they were 
trying to have this be, you know, a force of several thousand 
young persons who could help them surge in the case of a major 
disaster. We saw that they did that. I think the challenge that 
we saw with the surge there--or the FEMA Corps was just, you 
know, plugging them into an existing complicated process too. I 
mean, there were a lot of things that they can do in the 
immediate response. Things like helping, you know, go door-to-
door, get people information, talk to survivors, those types of 
things. But when it came down to some of the more technical 
processes that are involved in response and recovery, they may 
not have had the training that was necessary to do that. So, I 
think it was hard for FEMA field leaders who we talked to to 
plug them in where it was necessary.
    Ms. Titus. Well, maybe we ought to look at that training 
program and try to help fill some of these vacancies. Also, 
there might be some additional incentives to attract people to 
the program and then they will stay in FEMA for a career.
    Mr. Currie. Yes, ma'am. I know that was the goal. We 
haven't looked at it again over the last 5 years or so. But 
what we have seen over time is the numbers of FEMA Corps kind-
of go down. I am not sure what the exact numbers now. I think 
it is in the hundreds. It seems like they have gotten a little 
bit away from using FEMA Corps in their response efforts.
    Ms. Titus. Well, we are talking about a Climate Corps, and 
I think a FEMA Corps is a good thing and we want to attract the 
best and brightest, get people interested in these jobs at a 
early age. So, we might want to revisit that and see how we can 
bump it up some. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
    Chairwoman Demings. Thank you so much. The gentlewoman 
yields back. With that I want to thank our witnesses for your 
valuable testimony today. Of course, we did not anticipate the 
change in our vote schedule. Votes were called in the middle of 
our hearing. But we were able to get through it. I thank you so 
much for your patience. I also thank the Members of both 
subcommittees who participated today in this very important 
discussion. I look forward to working with our panelists on 
some of the issues that we discussed here today.
    The Members of the subcommittees may have additional 
questions for the witnesses and we ask that you respond 
expeditiously in writing to those questions. The Chair reminds 
Members that the subcommittees' record will remain open for 10 
business days. Without objection, the subcommittees stand 
adjourned. Thank you all.
    [Whereupon, at 11:28 p.m., the subcommittees were 
adjourned.]



                            A P P E N D I X

                              ----------                              

      Questions From Ranking Member John Katko for W. Craig Fugate
    Question 1. In your opinion, what steps should FEMA be taking to 
effectively balance and respond to these priorities?
    Answer. I would defer to FEMA Administrator Criswell on how she is 
approaching this issue. I would note however that FEMA is asked to do 
many things because they have capabilities that are needed by other 
Federal agencies or the Nation. This is a good thing if FEMA is 
resourced to do the work. If not, then who else is going to do it?
    Question 2. During a Transportation and Infrastructure hearing last 
year, Administrator Criswell noted ``many of our staff have been 
activated in support of COVID-19 response operations and numerous other 
disaster declarations for over a year . . . '' How is employee morale 
and job performance impacted when response personnel are continually 
redeployed from one disaster to the next?
    Answer. My experience is that FEMA morale is highest when FEMA 
staff are in direct support to communities in a crisis. The challenge 
in longer-term recovery operations where FEMA staff are pulled from to 
go to the next disaster response.
    Question 3. We understand that it takes a village to get people 
back on their feet after their homes have been struck by disaster. 
After the December tornadoes that wreaked havoc across 6 States, we 
were proud of the FEMA emergency responders who quickly mobilized to 
lend a helping hand. In your experience, what measures does FEMA take 
not only to quickly mobilize a massive workforce in response to 
disaster, but also to ensure that qualified staff are being deployed to 
sites?
    Answer. As noted in my written testimony, the lack of on-going 
training for FEMA Reservist outside of disaster deployments and limited 
benefits results in high staff turn-over and limited training for their 
disaster mission.
    Question 4a. The RAND report found that almost 30 percent of FEMA's 
workforce experienced a sex- or race-based rights violation in 2019. 
Although this report was after your time at FEMA, the issue at FEMA is 
likely not new. In your tenure at FEMA, what measures did you take to 
ensure a safe work environment, free to sex- or race-based violations?
    Answer. Some of the steps we took were to increase funding for the 
FEMA Equal Employment Opportunity Office to address a backlog of 
discrimination cases, some dating back to the Hurricane Katrina 
response. We increased training for front-line supervisors.
    Question 4b. Could you please describe the specific types of 
trainings FEMA leadership, versus employees and supervisors, underwent 
to reduce the occurrence of workplace harassment and discrimination 
based on sex, gender, race, or ethnicity?
    Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
    Question 5a. Does FEMA's current hiring process hinder their 
ability to address staffing shortages?
    Question 5b. If so, how? Specifically, what parts of the process 
are limiting FEMA's ability to hire the people the agency needs and 
what can be done moving forward?
    Question 5c. Does FEMA need additional hiring authorities to 
address staffing shortages?
    Answer. The answers to the above are complex and are better 
addressed by the current administration. The one that I would like to 
comment on is the FEMA Reserve Workforce. Reservist at FEMA are not the 
equivalent of the military Reservist who are covered under the 
Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act. Rather FEMA 
Reservist are considered on-call who work intermittently with little 
benefits when not deployed. They have no protections if they have full-
time employment when called up.
    Hiring and maintaining FEMA Reservists is a continuous process. As 
the work is on-call, and intermittent, attracting talent in tight job 
markets is a challenge. Without incentives to recruit and maintain 
Reservists, this workforce will continue to be a staffing challenge for 
current and future disasters.
Improve benefits and retention of the Reservist workforce
    1. Provide all Reservist with a minimum of 2 days a month and 2 
        weeks a year of paid training if not deployed in that fiscal 
        year for at least 30 days.
    2. Consider adding the FEMA Reservist workforce to the Uniformed 
        Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act or provide 
        similar protections under the Stafford Act.
    3. Continue to improve the implementation of Disaster Reform and 
        Recovery Act (DRRA) where CORE and Reservists can compete for 
        PFT positions at FEMA under Merit Promotion after 3 or more 
        years of continuous work.
     Question From Honorable Diana Harshbarger for W. Craig Fugate
    Question. In your view, would awarding FEMA contracts to 
contractors physically located near disaster sites produce favorable 
outcomes both by expediting the process of getting boots on the ground 
and by providing work to residents affected by the disaster? Should 
FEMA consider updating their contracting processes to prioritize 
contractors located near the disaster site?
    Answer. Yes, my time as administrator, I urged that we buy local 
and hire local to help the local economy in the aftermath of a 
disaster. We supported that process by deploying purchasing staff to 
help local businesses navigate Federal contracts and to directly 
purchase goods and services from the communities in the disaster zone. 
Local hiring is another tool to put people to work that are displaced 
by the disaster.
       Questions From Honorable Peter Meijer for W. Craig Fugate
    Question 1. GAO has reported that FEMA workforce issues are long-
standing and are often at the core of other FEMA operational 
challenges. Considering this, when you were at FEMA, did FEMA ever 
consider a significant overhaul, or reboot of how it manages its 
workforce?
    Answer. The first item we implemented was the requirement that all 
full-time staff have an emergency job in addition to their full-time 
position. This gives FEMA employees the chance to deploy to disasters 
in the immediate aftermath.
    The second was to equip full-time staff with laptops and cell phone 
to work remotely when necessary.
    The third item failed. We attempted to provide minimum training and 
hours to FEMA Reservist (part-time, on-call) consisting of 2 days a 
month and 2 weeks a year in not deployed to a disaster in the recent 
past. Due to how the Reservist are funded, we were unable to provide 
training outside of a disaster deployment.
    Question 2. Given the challenges the FEMA workforce has faced over 
the past few years, such as staff shortages and burn-out, what is the 
most critical step FEMA should take to ensure it can respond adequately 
to hurricanes and wildfires in 2022? Could you tell us, to your own 
knowledge, if FEMA has implemented this action?
    Answer. FEMA staff, both full-time and the Reservist have always 
been there to respond to the next disaster. The shortfall is in the 
recovery workforce.
    Questions from Chairwoman Val Demings for Christopher P. Currie
    Question 1. Developing and maintaining a high-performing workforce 
is a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security and several 
DHS components have developed innovative solutions for attracting and 
retaining new and diverse employees. For example, the Cybersecurity and 
Infrastructure Security Agency is leveraging the newly-launched 
Cybersecurity Talent Management System to better recruit and retain 
cyber talent. Similarly, Customs and Border Protection announced the 
launch of the CBP Applicant Portal to provide a centralized location 
for applicants to receive tailored information on their application 
status. What lessons can FEMA learn and apply to its workforce 
development efforts from these and other DHS components?
    Answer. Our body of work on strategic human capital management has 
highlighted strategies that can help agencies better manage the current 
and future workforce, including managing the timing of recruitment, 
writing user-friendly vacancy announcements, leveraging available 
hiring and pay flexibilities, increasing support for an inclusive work 
environment, and encouraging rotations and other mobility 
opportunities.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ GAO, Human Capital: Improving Federal Recruiting and Hiring 
Efforts, GAO-19-696T (Washington, DC: July 30, 2019).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We have not yet examined the Cybersecurity Talent Management System 
or the CBP Applicant Portal to identify lessons learned. Both of these 
efforts are relatively new, and once they have been in place long 
enough for CBP and DHS to identify lessons learned, DHS's Human Capital 
Leadership Council, which consists of Department-wide human capital 
leaders, can provide a forum through which FEMA's human capital leaders 
could learn about the benefits and challenges of these new approaches.
    Additionally, FEMA could take additional steps to implement one of 
our recommendations related to workforce development. Specifically, in 
May 2020, we recommended that FEMA should create a staff development 
program for FEMA's disaster workforce that, at a minimum, addresses 
access to training, delivery of on-the-job training and mentoring, use 
of performance evaluations, and consistent developmental opportunities 
regardless of deployment status.\2\ As discussed in greater detail 
below, FEMA has taken steps in response to this recommendation to 
improve staff development, but further action is needed to create an 
integrated and cohesive program to develop its disaster workforce.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ GAO, FEMA Disaster Workforce: Actions Needed to Address 
Deployment and Staff Development Challenges, GAO-20-360 (Washington, 
DC: May 4, 2020).
    \3\ FEMA's steps to respond to this recommendation are detailed in 
response to a subsequent question in this enclosure and are also 
detailed on GAO's website at https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-360.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question 2. The Biden administration's 2022-2026 FEMA Strategic 
Plan identifies increased efforts to recruit from a wider variety of 
locations and backgrounds as key to the development of a diverse 
workforce. What can FEMA do to recruit and engage with potential 
candidates from underrepresented communities?
    Answer. Leading practices for human capital management, 
specifically for diversity management, include having a recruitment 
process for attracting a supply of qualified, diverse applicants for 
employment.\4\ For example, to ensure that agencies are reaching out to 
diverse pools of talent, they can widen the selection of schools from 
which they recruit to include, for example, historically Black colleges 
and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and women's colleges. 
Agencies may also want to consider partnering with multicultural 
professional organizations and speaking at their conferences to 
communicate their commitment to diversity to external audiences and 
strengthen and maintain relationships. We have reported on the extent 
to which other Federal agencies have implemented recruitment strategies 
to attract qualified, diverse applicants for employment.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ GAO, Diversity Management: Expert-Identified Leading Practices 
and Agency Examples, GAO-05-90 (Washington, DC: Jan. 14, 2005). See 
also https://www.gao.gov/leading-practices-human-capital-management for 
more details on our leading practices for human capital management.
    \5\ For example, see GAO, Army Corps of Engineers: Workforce 
Planning Follows Most Leading Practices but Could Be Enhanced with 
Additional Actions, GAO-22-104054 (Washington, DC: Dec. 9, 2021) and 
GAO, Intelligence Community: Additional Actions Needed to Strengthen 
Workforce Diversity Planning and Oversight, GAO-21-83 (Washington, DC: 
Dec. 17, 2020).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    FEMA's Strategic Plan states that FEMA will partner with 
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the American Indian 
Higher Education Consortium of Tribal Colleges and Universities to 
create hiring pipelines into the field of emergency management. We 
recently initiated work on FEMA's hiring process and staffing shortages 
and the impact these shortages might have on disaster response efforts. 
As part of this work, we will be examining FEMA's hiring initiatives, 
which could include targeting candidates from underrepresented 
communities for recruitment.
     Questions From Honorable Dina Titus for Christopher P. Currie
    Question 1a. Following the release of RAND's report on harassment 
and discrimination in the FEMA workforce, FEMA released a Culture 
Improvement Action Plan, which details several steps it plans to take 
to address RAND's report's findings and recommendations. At the request 
of this committee, GAO is performing a review of FEMA's implementation 
of this action plan.
    What actions has FEMA taken thus far to implement this plan?
    Answer. As part of our on-going work, at the request of Chairman 
Thompson, we are identifying what actions FEMA has taken since fiscal 
year 2019 to prevent and respond to harassment and discrimination in 
the workplace. Some of these actions detailed in the Culture 
Improvement Action Plan involve offering additional training--including 
sexual misconduct awareness and response training at Joint Field 
Offices as well as civil treatment training for employees and 
supervisors--and increasing engagement between FEMA workforce and 
agency leadership by hosting all-staff Town Halls and listening 
sessions between leadership and FEMA Employee Resource Groups.
    Additionally, in 2019, FEMA restructured its processes to respond 
to allegations of harassment by establishing the Office of Professional 
Responsibility. The Office of Professional Responsibility is 
responsible for investigating reports of employee misconduct, including 
harassment. In 2021, FEMA adopted an anti-harassment program 
instruction, which guides the agency's response to harassment for any 
FEMA employee, contractor, vendor, applicant, or individual that comes 
into contact with FEMA employees.
    Question 1b. What reaction has the FEMA community had to these 
actions?
    Answer. As part of our on-going work, we are meeting with each of 
FEMA's 10 Employee Resource Groups to obtain their perspectives on 
FEMA's actions to address harassment and discrimination since RAND 
published its report, Harassment and Discrimination on the Basis of 
Gender and Race/Ethnicity in the FEMA Workforce. The 10 Employee 
Resource Groups represent a variety of employee identities, including 
African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American-Pacific Islander, 
American Indian/Alaska Native, LGBTQIA, military veterans, National 
service alumni, women, older employees, and employees with 
disabilities.
    We expect to publish our report on this topic in fall 2022.
    In addition, FEMA contracted with RAND to conduct a follow-up 
survey in 2021. All FEMA employees were invited to participate in this 
survey, which included similar questions to the initial survey about 
the prevalence of workplace harassment and discrimination and 
perceptions of agency leadership. Results from this follow-up survey 
are expected in summer 2022.
   Questions From Ranking Member John Katko for Christopher P. Currie
    Question 1. In your opinion, what steps should FEMA be taking to 
effectively balance and respond to these priorities?
    Answer. FEMA's disaster workforce will be in high demand for the 
foreseeable future.\6\ We have previously reported that the rising 
number and costs of disasters and the increasing reliance on the 
Federal Government for disaster assistance will likely continue to rise 
as the climate changes.\7\ Recently, as we mentioned in our January 
2022 testimony statement, the increasing frequency of disasters and the 
additional responsibilities of responding to the Coronavirus Disease 
2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, assisting at the Southwest Border, and 
resettling Afghan refugees have stretched the FEMA workforce in 
unprecedented ways.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ GAO-20-360.
    \7\ GAO, Climate Change: Information on Potential Economic Effects 
Could Help Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Fiscal Exposure, GAO-17-720 
(Washington, DC: Sept. 28, 2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    To balance and respond to these and any future priorities, we 
believe that FEMA needs to review its workforce in a holistic manner 
and make progress on addressing some of its long-standing challenges. 
We have made numerous recommendations in prior reports designed to 
address FEMA workforce challenges. As discussed in greater detail below 
in response to your third question, in our May 2020 report on FEMA's 
disaster workforce, we made 3 recommendations, 2 of which we designated 
as priority recommendations for DHS, meaning we believe they warrant 
priority attention and can substantially improve or transform major 
Government programs or agencies.\8\ Although FEMA has taken some steps 
to implement these 2 priority recommendations, it has not yet fully 
addressed them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ GAO-20-360 and GAO, Priority Open Recommendations: Department 
of Homeland Security, GAO-21-377PR (Washington, DC: Aug. 13, 2021).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Through coordination with key Governmental and non-Governmental 
partners and collaboration on crosscutting efforts to improve program 
management and operations, FEMA could also help ensure that its 
available workforce can achieve greater results. We also have on-going 
work examining the coordination of Federal disaster programs, in which 
FEMA, as the Federal agency with primary responsibility for 
coordinating disaster response across approximately 30 other agencies, 
plays a vital role. As part of that work, we will be examining the 
design and implementation of some of FEMA's programs--specifically 
Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation--to assess the extent to which 
they facilitate or hinder a coordinated approach to disaster recovery. 
We will also be examining what actions Congress or Federal agencies 
could take to provide for a more efficient and coordinated Federal 
approach to disaster recovery and post-disaster investments in 
resilience. We expect to report on this work in late 2022.
    Question 2. During a Transportation and Infrastructure hearing last 
year, Administrator Criswell noted ``many of our staff have been 
activated in support of COVID-19 response operations and numerous other 
disaster declarations for over a year . . . ''. How is employee morale 
and job performance impacted when response personnel are continually 
redeployed from one disaster to the next?
    Answer. We have not specifically examined how the frequency of 
deployments has affected employee morale or job performance. However, 
as we stated in our January 2022 testimony statement, staffing 
shortages, coupled with burn-out associated with the increased 
frequency of disasters and an expanded scope of responsibility over 
time, have the potential to negatively affect FEMA employees' 
engagement and morale. For example, in May 2020, we reported that FEMA 
officials believe that fatigue from previous deployments to Hurricanes 
Harvey and Irma contributed a high rate of staff deployment 
declinations to respond to Hurricane Maria. Specifically, these 
officials cited that 48 percent of FEMA staff members who showed 
availability declined to deploy to respond to Hurricane Maria when 
requested to do so.\9\ In this May 2020 report, we recommended that 
FEMA develop mechanisms, including collecting relevant data, to assess 
how effectively FEMA's disaster workforce was deployed to meet mission 
needs in the field. FEMA concurred with this recommendation. 
Implementing this recommendation, the status of which we discuss in 
response to your third question below, could help FEMA better 
understand the impact that continuing to deploy from one disaster to 
the next might have on the employee morale and job performance of 
response personnel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ GAO-20-360.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We also reported in January 2021 that top leaders at DHS have 
stated that concerns with working conditions and workload have 
negatively affect employee morale and engagement.\10\ In that report, 
we found that DHS and each of its major components--including FEMA--
face the same key drivers of employee engagement as the rest of the 
Federal Government. Among these key drivers of employee engagement is 
work-life balance. We have found improving employee engagement, 
including through strategies can give them more work-life balance, is 
important because engaged employees are more innovative, more 
productive, more committed to their employer and its mission, more 
satisfied, and less likely to leave.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ GAO, DHS Employee Morale: Some Improvements Made, but 
Additional Actions Needed to Strengthen Employee Engagement, GAO-21-204 
(Washington, DC: Jan. 12, 2021).
    \11\ GAO, Federal Workforce: Key Talent Management Strategies for 
Agencies to Better Meet Their Missions, GAO-19-181 (Washington, DC: 
Mar. 28, 2019).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question 3. Given FEMA's mounting mission sets, spanning from 
natural disaster response to assisting with the crisis at the Southwest 
Border and resettling Afghan refugees, it is imperative that the agency 
be able to resolve challenges to its workforce capacity. Could you 
please provide the committee with an update on the steps FEMA has taken 
to implement GAO's recommendations?
    Answer. In our May 2020 report on FEMA's disaster workforce, we 
made three recommendations.\12\ Although FEMA has taken some steps to 
implement our recommendations, it has not yet fully addressed them. A 
detailed status update is provided below for each recommendation. We 
designated Recommendations 1 and 2 as priority recommendations for DHS, 
meaning we believe they warrant priority attention and can 
substantially improve or transform major Government programs or 
agencies.\13\ We will continue to monitor FEMA's on-going efforts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ GAO-20-360.
    \13\ GAO-21-377PR.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Recommendation 1.--The FEMA administrator should develop a 
        plan--with time frames and milestones and input from field 
        leadership--to address identified challenges that have hindered 
        FEMA's ability to provide reliable and complete information to 
        field leaders and managers about staff knowledge, skills, and 
        abilities.
    Status.--DHS concurred with our recommendation. As of December 
        2021, according to FEMA officials, FEMA has taken steps to 
        enhance the FEMA Qualification System's coach-and-evaluator 
        program to provide more oversight of the program and help 
        ensure greater reliability for personnel who receive 
        qualification status. For example, FEMA stated that it has 
        implemented assessments that cadres can use to help ensure that 
        coach-and-evaluators are effectively coaching disaster staff. 
        FEMA also stated that it is facilitating virtual coach-and-
        evaluator deployments to maximize pairing opportunities and 
        increase Position Task Book completion rates among staff who do 
        not have available coach-and-evaluators to pair with in the 
        Deployment Tracking System. In addition, FEMA officials said 
        that they conducted a listening session in April 2021 with 
        field leadership to gather input on the FEMA Qualification 
        System. As a result of this session, FEMA officials said that 
        they have developed qualification plans for cadres, conducted a 
        field leader training analysis, and standardized coach-and-
        evaluator selection and activity. While these are positive 
        actions, in order to address the complex and interrelated 
        challenges we identified in our report, it will be important 
        for FEMA to take a comprehensive approach and develop a plan 
        that considers solutions that may cut across multiple systems 
        and processes.
   Recommendation 2.--The FEMA administrator should develop 
        mechanisms, including collecting relevant data, to assess how 
        effectively FEMA's disaster workforce was deployed to meet 
        mission needs in the field.
    Status.--DHS concurred with our recommendation. As of December 
        2021, according to FEMA officials, the agency is making 
        progress toward meeting the force structure targets it 
        established in 2019 and has a process in place to modify the 
        targets for certain cadres on an annual basis if needed. 
        According to these officials, such modifications will be based 
        in part on feedback they receive via continuous coordination 
        with the field on how deployments are meeting mission needs. 
        FEMA officials noted that this will help cadres improve 
        staffing models to better reflect how many personnel are needed 
        to meet field requirements, including how quickly those staff 
        are needed to phase into disasters and for how long they are 
        likely required to meet disasters of different scales and 
        complexities. While implementing our recommendation could 
        include similar inputs as this planning process, our 
        recommendation is focused on FEMA systematically collecting 
        feedback from field leadership and relevant data on the extent 
        to which its deployment processes and decisions (e.g., number 
        and timing of deployments) met field needs during disasters. In 
        its December 2021 update, FEMA officials stated the Field 
        Operations Division works closely with the National 
        Preparedness Directorate, which routinely engages with both 
        field leadership and staff, during and after disasters, to 
        solicit feedback, conduct analyses of field staffing 
        challenges, and provide specific recommendations to programs 
        for improvements. Officials also stated that one of the 
        directorate's data collection priorities is disaster workforce 
        staffing. To satisfy the conditions of this recommendation, 
        FEMA will need to provide evidence that it has established 
        mechanisms--including collecting relevant data--that would 
        allow the agency to assess how effectively FEMA's disaster 
        workforce was deployed to meet mission needs.
   Recommendation 3.--The FEMA administrator should create a 
        staff development program for FEMA's disaster workforce that, 
        at a minimum, addresses access to training, delivery of on-the-
        job training and mentoring, use of performance evaluations, and 
        consistent developmental opportunities regardless of deployment 
        status.
    Status.--DHS concurred with our recommendation. FEMA has taken a 
        number of steps to improve staff development. For example, to 
        facilitate staff's ability to take training outside of the 
        requirements in their Position Task Books (e.g., refresher 
        training, training related to their deployed responsibilities), 
        FEMA stated that, in October 2020, it built a new mechanism 
        into the Deployment Tracking System that allows cadre 
        management to assign such training to employees so that they 
        can register for these classes. FEMA officials noted that this 
        will make training more accessible and allow staff to 
        continuously improve their performance. Further, in its 2021 
        updates, FEMA stated that it has implemented assessments that 
        cadres can use to help ensure that coach-and-evaluators are 
        effectively coaching disaster staff. FEMA also stated that it 
        plans to facilitate virtual coach-and-evaluator deployments to 
        maximize pairing opportunities for staff who do not have 
        available coach-and-evaluators to pair with in the Deployment 
        Tracking System. In addition, FEMA has issued a Deployment 
        Performance Evaluation Directive, which provides guidance to 
        Temporary Duty Supervisors for conducting deployment 
        performance reviews of disaster staff and addressing 
        performance deficiencies. The deployment performance 
        evaluations are recorded in the Deployment Tracking System and 
        use the same core competencies as those for full-time staff. 
        FEMA stated that these evaluations will be a key part of the 
        Reservist Performance Management Program, which establishes a 
        process for providing annual performance appraisals for 
        Reservists and assisting them in maintaining and improving 
        performance. We will continue to monitor FEMA's actions to 
        assess the extent to which these actions constitute an 
        integrated and cohesive program to develop its disaster 
        workforce.
    Question 4. GAO reported that FEMA faced staffing shortages during 
the 2017 and 2018 disaster seasons, including shortages in its 
contracting workforce. Unfortunately, since those two seasons, the 
prevalence of disasters does not seem to be slowing down. Have these 
shortages continued since that time, and if so, how has FEMA responded?
    Answer. FEMA has steadily increased its total force numbers--
including permanent full-time staff, Cadre of On-Call Response 
Employees (CORE), and Reservists--in recent years, however we have not 
specifically assessed to what extent these increases have kept pace 
with the demands on FEMA. In response to a request from Chairman 
Thompson and Subcommittee Chairwoman Demings, we have recently 
initiated a review to identify whether staffing shortages have 
persisted. This review will also include an in-depth examination of 
FEMA's hiring processes and initiatives and will address actions FEMA 
has taken to ensure it has the workforce needed to meet its various 
missions.
    Question 5. In 2020, GAO reported that FEMA does not adequately 
ensure staff development, such as providing training courses, on-the-
job learning, coaching, and mentoring. This is especially true of 
Reservists, who make up a large percentage of FEMA's disaster 
workforce. As FEMA continues to increase its workforce, how can it 
ensure that personnel are able to access timely and program-specific 
developmental opportunities--on the job and when not deployed?
    Answer. In May 2020, we recommended that FEMA should create a staff 
development program for its disaster workforce that, at a minimum, 
addresses access to training, delivery of on-the-job training and 
mentoring, use of performance evaluations, and consistent developmental 
opportunities regardless of deployment status.\14\ DHS concurred with 
our recommendation, and the status of FEMA's efforts to implement our 
recommendation is detailed in response to question 3 above.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\ GAO-20-360.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Question From Honorable Diana Harshbarger for Christopher P. Currie
    Question. In your view, would awarding FEMA contracts to 
contractors physically located near disaster sites produce favorable 
outcomes both by expediting the process of getting boots on the ground 
and by providing work to residents affected by the disaster? Should 
FEMA consider updating their contracting processes to prioritize 
contractors located near the disaster site?
    Answer. Awarding contracts to contractors located near disasters is 
an important concept supported by statute and regulation. Specifically, 
the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2007 (Post-Katrina 
Act) amended the Stafford Act to provide a contracting preference for 
local vendors.\15\ The Stafford Act, as amended, contains mechanisms to 
provide Federal assistance to affected communities in the aftermath of 
a major disaster and jump-start the local economy through the award of 
contracts to local businesses in the disaster area. The act states, 
among other things, that agencies shall provide a contracting 
preference, to the extent feasible and practicable, to organizations, 
firms, and individuals residing or doing business primarily in the area 
affected by the major disaster or emergency. To this end, agencies may, 
for example, set aside contract awards so that only vendors residing or 
primarily doing business in the declared disaster area are allowed to 
compete for an award. Further, contracts not awarded to local vendors 
after a major disaster, such as if it is not feasible or practical, 
shall be justified in writing in the contract file. After the enactment 
of the Post-Katrina Act, changes were made to the Federal Acquisition 
Regulation (FAR) to implement provisions regarding the preference for 
local vendors when contracting for major disaster for emergency 
assistance activities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \15\ 42 U.S.C.  5150.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Although the contracting preference for agencies using local 
vendors in the aftermath of a major disaster is clear in statute and 
regulation, our past work identified challenges with FEMA's use of 
local vendors. However, FEMA has subsequently improved its guidance on 
these issues. Specifically, in September 2015 we found that some FEMA 
contracting officers were confused about how to define the area of a 
local area set-aside and we recommended that the FEMA administrator 
provide new or updated guidance to ensure contracting officers are 
aware of requirements concerning how to contract with local 
vendors.\16\ DHS concurred, and updated guidance to reiterate the 
requirements and clarify how to determine the geographic area of a 
local area set-aside. Subsequently, in April 2019 we found that FEMA 
officials accurately identified the set-aside area for 6 selected 
contracts awarded in response to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and 
Maria.\17\ Additionally, as of 2021, FEMA included information on 
requirements related to contracting with local vendors following a 
major disaster, in both guidance and training that they provide to 
contracting officers. Specifically, FEMA's 2020 Disaster Contracting 
Desk Guide and its disaster contract file verification toolkit--a 
checklist of steps for contracting officers to take prior to award--
include requirements related to using local area set-asides or 
documenting why using a local business may not be feasible. Further, 
local area set-asides were included as a training topic in FEMA's 
annual disaster contracting webinar in 2020. Finally, FEMA included 
information on requirements related to contracting with local vendors 
and the disaster contract file verification toolkit in its recently 
published FEMA Acquisition Manual.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \16\ GAO, Disaster Contracting: FEMA Needs to Cohesively Manage Its 
Workforce and Fully Address Post-Katrina Reforms, GAO-15-783 
(Washington, DC: Sept. 29, 2015).
    \17\ GAO, 2017 Disaster Contracting: Actions Needed to Improve the 
Use of Post-Disaster Contracts to Support Response and Recovery, GAO-
19-281 (Washington, DC: Apr. 24, 2019).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    While FEMA has clarified in its guidance requirements related to 
contracting with local vendors following major disasters, limitations 
in Government-wide guidance on emergency acquisitions remain. In April 
2019, we found that contracting and legal officials at FEMA and at the 
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) were unsure what or how much 
information was sufficient to determine that an offeror qualifies as a 
``local firm'' under the FAR.\18\ Further, we found that USACE and FEMA 
applied the FAR criteria that contracting officers may consider to 
determine whether an offeror resides or primarily does business in the 
set-aside area differently. We recommended that the administrator of 
the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) provide additional 
clarification on how contracting officers should determine whether 
offerors reside or primarily do business in a disaster area for the 
purposes of a local area set-aside contract. OFPP concurred with the 
recommendation and identified the Emergency Acquisition Guide, which 
was last updated in 2011, as a vehicle to address the recommendation. 
As of May 2021 OFPP staff stated that the agency plans to update the 
Emergency Acquisition Guide to include information on how contracting 
officers should determine whether offerors reside or primarily do 
business in a disaster area, but did not provide a time line for doing 
so. Without clarifying guidance, contracting and legal officials will 
likely continue to have varying interpretations of the FAR criteria for 
determining that an offeror qualifies as a local firm, increasing the 
risk that an offeror may be considered local by some agencies, but not 
others.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ GAO-19-281.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Questions From Honorable Peter Meijer for Christopher P. Currie
    Question 1a. Mr. Currie, in May 2020, GAO published a report citing 
critical challenges to FEMA's disaster workforce. These challenges 
included staffing shortages, qualification concerns upon deployment, 
and a lack of development opportunities for staff. Could you please 
tell the committee what kind of risks these challenges pose to FEMA's 
mission sets?
    Question 1b. Staff development plays a key role not only in 
ensuring disaster responses are properly staffed, but in retaining 
qualified staff for future response efforts. Could you please explain 
to the committee the current challenges FEMA is facing in implementing 
further staff development opportunities?
    Answer. As we mentioned in our January 2022 testimony statement, 
staffing shortages, workforce qualification concerns upon deployment, 
and a lack of development opportunities for staff pose risks to FEMA 
being able to achieve its mission of helping people before, during, and 
after disasters. Regarding risks posed by staffing shortages, with an 
increase in the frequency and cost of disasters, and with FEMA 
simultaneously supporting numerous efforts outside of its normal core 
responsibilities, we are concerned that FEMA personnel may not be 
prepared to manage a catastrophic natural disaster or concurrent 
disasters. As for qualification concerns upon deployment, FEMA planning 
managers noted that having staff inaccurately designated as qualified 
in FEMA's qualification system hindered FEMA's ability to support 
mission needs and affected morale by adding to others' workload. 
Finally, consistent and effective staff development is particularly 
important to help build the skills of staff who are qualified in the 
FEMA qualification system but unable to proficiently perform their 
duties and develop the large number of staff that FEMA has recently 
hired to meet its new disaster workforce targets.
    Regarding current challenges FEMA is facing in implementing further 
staff development opportunities, we recommended in May 2020 that FEMA 
create a staff development program for its disaster workforce.\19\ This 
staff development program should, at a minimum, address access to 
training, delivery of on-the-job training and mentoring, use of 
performance evaluations, and developmental opportunities. Such a 
program would help FEMA ensure more consistent and comprehensive 
development of the skills and abilities needed during deployments. FEMA 
has taken a number of steps in response to this recommendation, as 
detailed in response to Ranking Member John Katko's third question, and 
we will continue to monitor FEMA's actions to assess the extent to 
which these actions constitute an integrated and cohesive program to 
develop its disaster workforce.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\ GAO-20-360.
    \20\ FEMA's steps to respond to this recommendation are detailed on 
GAO's website at https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-360.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question 2. Given the challenges the FEMA workforce has faced over 
the past few years, such as staff shortages and burn-out, what is the 
most critical step FEMA should take to ensure it can respond adequately 
to hurricanes and wildfires in 2022? Could you tell us, to your own 
knowledge, if FEMA has implemented this action?
    Answer. We believe that implementing key GAO recommendations 
related to FEMA's disaster workforce is a critical step FEMA should 
take in ensuring that it can respond adequately to disasters in 2022 
and beyond. We have designated two recommendations related to FEMA's 
workforce as priority recommendations for DHS, meaning we believe they 
warrant priority attention and can substantially improve or transform 
major Government programs or agencies.\21\ Specifically, FEMA should: 
(1) Develop a plan--with time frames and milestones and input from 
field leadership--to address identified challenges that have hindered 
FEMA's ability to provide reliable and complete information to field 
leaders and managers about staff knowledge, skills, and abilities; and 
(2) develop mechanisms, including collecting relevant data, to assess 
how effectively FEMA's disaster workforce was deployed to meet mission 
needs in the field. Although FEMA has taken some steps to implement 
these two priority recommendations, it has not yet fully addressed 
them. We have provided a detailed status update for each recommendation 
in response to Ranking Member John Katko's third question.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \21\ GAO-20-360 and GAO-21-377PR.
    \22\ FEMA's steps to respond to these recommendations are detailed 
on GAO's website at https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-360.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question From Chairwoman Val Demings for Carra S. Sims \23\ \24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \23\ The opinions and conclusions expressed in this addendum are 
the author's alone and should not be interpreted as representing those 
of the RAND Corporation or any of the sponsors of its research.
    \24\ The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops 
solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities 
throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier, and more 
prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public 
interest. RAND's mission is enabled through its core values of quality 
and objectivity and its commitment to integrity and ethical behavior. 
RAND subjects its research publications to a robust and exacting 
quality-assurance process; avoids financial and other conflicts of 
interest through staff training, project screening, and a policy of 
mandatory disclosure; and pursues transparency through the open 
publication of research findings and recommendations, disclosure of the 
source of funding of published research, and policies to ensure 
intellectual independence. This testimony is not a research 
publication, but witnesses affiliated with RAND routinely draw on 
relevant research conducted in the organization.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question. The 2020 RAND report on harassment and discrimination in 
the FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] workplace concludes that 
``One vital component in organization change is measurement of the 
problem.''\25\ To that end, I know the RAND Corporation conducted a 
follow-up survey of the FEMA workforce last year. What is the status of 
this follow-up survey and when do you expect to release your findings?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \25\ This is referring to Coreen Farris, Carra S. Sims, Terry L. 
Schell, Miriam Matthews, Sierra Smucker, Samantha Cohen, and Owen Hall, 
Harassment and Discrimination on the Basis of Gender and Race/Ethnicity 
in the FEMA Workforce, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-A383-
1, 2020, www.rand.org/t/RRA383-1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Answer. We have fielded a second survey at FEMA. We are currently 
conducting this analysis and completing documentation. While we do not 
have an expected release date yet because the work is still in 
progress, we will share the published report with the committee and its 
members as soon as it is complete, has gone through RAND's rigorous 
quality assurance review, and has cleared FEMA and the U.S. Department 
of Homeland Security's (DHS's) public release review process.
       Questions From Ranking Member John Katko for Carra S. Sims
    Question 1. In your opinion, what steps should FEMA be taking to 
effectively balance and respond to these priorities?
    Answer. Our study did not speak to how FEMA should balance its 
priorities, though a reduction in harassment and discrimination would 
potentially facilitate staff retention and productivity. Our study did 
provide recommendations aimed at helping FEMA leadership make decisions 
about programming and policy responses to address harassment and 
discrimination in the workplace. In 2019, we offered several 
recommendations to FEMA, including the following:
    1. Explore differences in culture and climate between offices that 
        had low rates of civil rights violations and those with higher 
        rates.
    2. Explore interventions with leaders at all levels to ensure that 
        all understand how best to handle harassment and understand 
        their responsibility to address it.
    3. Reduce barriers to reporting.
    4. Increase accountability and transparency in dealing with 
        harassment and discrimination reports at all levels of 
        leadership.
    5. Continue monitoring harassment and discrimination in the 
        workforce.
    Question 2. During a Transportation and Infrastructure hearing last 
year, Administrator Criswell noted ``many of our staff have been 
activated in support of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] response 
operations and numerous other disaster declarations for over a year . . 
. ''. How is employee morale and job performance impacted when response 
personnel are continually redeployed from one disaster to the next?
    Answer. The question relates to how employees manage stress and 
well-being and maintain performance when they are assigned to one 
disaster after another with no rest period in between. Our study did 
not directly investigate the effects of COVID-19 and continual disaster 
deployment on morale at FEMA, or how employees manage stress and well-
being and maintain performance. However, our study did suggest that 
experiencing harassment and discrimination may reduce productivity and 
retention, while the broader literature suggests more-general wellness 
impacts.
    Other colleagues at RAND have examined the issue of workforce 
stress and resilience. For example, experts have reviewed existing 
programs for the DHS workforce to support psychological health and 
resilience and have found a limited evidence base for most workplace 
psychological health interventions, as well as variation in access to 
services and the potential effectiveness of programs. Their 
recommendations suggest additional ways for DHS to move forward in 
ensuring its employees have access to evidence-based programs to 
support the response to the stressors they inevitably face.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \26\ Carrie M. Farmer, Katie Whipkey, and Margaret Chamberlin, 
Programs Addressing Psychological Health and Resilience in the U.S. 
Department of Homeland Security, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND 
Corporation, RR-1952-DHS, 2019, www.rand.org/t/RR1952.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Question 3. The RAND report states that FEMA asked you to determine 
the extent to which harassment and discrimination based on sex, gender, 
race, or ethnicity occurred in its entire workforce. How typical of a 
request is this--for an agency to request a self-assessment--and how 
does FEMA compare to other Federal agencies in this regard?
    Answer. This is not a typical request. In fact, FEMA is, to our 
knowledge, the first organization to request such information formally 
or informally without some external requirement being instituted by 
Congress or by a class action lawsuit. By utilizing independent 
expertise and publicly sharing this information, FEMA allows other 
organizations, both public and private, access to credible estimates 
and the opportunity to learn from its experience.
    The uniqueness of this request is actually why it is so difficult 
to provide comparators for the prevalence rates FEMA experienced in the 
year prior to the survey. Biennial Department of Defense (DoD) surveys 
and the 2016 U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board survey of Federal 
employees are among the exceptions. In DoD's case, those surveys are 
actually mandated by law rather than organizational choice.
Comparing Sexual Harassment at FEMA to Other Organizations
    Using a similar measurement approach, designed by the same team of 
RAND researchers, DoD found that 24.2 percent of active-duty service 
women and 6.3 percent of active-duty servicemen experienced sexual 
harassment in the past year. Compared to the annual estimates for FEMA 
employees (19.3 percent of female FEMA employees and 7.0 percent of 
male FEMA employees), the prevalence was higher for women in DoD and 
similar for men in DoD.
    The DoD workforce skews very young, which may explain the 
difference among women; younger adults are at higher risk than older 
adults.
    The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board used a different survey 
measure of sexual harassment than was used for the FEMA Workplace 
Support Survey and assessed sexual harassment in the past 2 years 
rather than only the past year. Across the entire Federal workforce 
(including DoD), the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board estimated that 
20.9 percent of women were sexually harassed in the past 2 years, while 
we estimated that 19.3 percent of FEMA women were sexually harassed in 
the past year.
Comparing Racial/Ethnic Harassment at FEMA to Other Organizations
    Using a similar measurement approach, DoD found that 16.5 percent 
of active component service members experienced racial/ethnic 
harassment and 5.6 percent experienced racial/ethnic discrimination in 
the prior year. Compared to the annual estimates for FEMA employees 
(16.0 percent racial/ethnic harassment and 6.5 percent racial/ethnic 
discrimination), the DoD estimates are similar.
    Question 4. The RAND report found that women were more likely to 
experience a civil rights violation; however, the rates of civil rights 
violations varied significantly across offices. Specifically, women in 
FEMA Regional Offices and the Office of the Administrator reported the 
highest percentage of employees having experienced a gender-based/
sexual harassment violation. While I recognize that the report did not 
explore why some offices have higher prevalence rates than others, 
based on other findings in the report, do you have any thoughts on what 
might be causing these variations in rates?
    In your opinion, is this something that would be worth exploring in 
future reports?
    Answer. We did not have the purview to explore this issue in depth, 
as you note. However, we did recommend that FEMA might wish to consider 
the issue with regard to determining whether some offices had best 
practices that could be used more broadly across the organization. We 
suggested that policy and enforcement of norms of behavior might differ 
in offices with higher and lower rates of civil rights violations. 
However, we also noted that it would be important to consider 
demographic and employee characteristic differences of the offices that 
might be predictive of prevalence, to rule out the hypothesis that 
simple demographic or employment characteristics account for the 
variation across offices. This is something that we think would be 
worth pursuing, but our study, including our follow-up, are not best 
suited to pursue these questions.
    Question 5. Dr. Sims, the RAND report describes findings from a 
survey fielded in 2019; to what extent is RAND or the Homeland Security 
Operational Analysis Center [HSOAC] planning on conducting follow-up to 
see if anything has changed in the past 2 years? Are you aware of 
actions that FEMA has taken because of your report?
    Answer. In response to our findings, FEMA published the Culture 
Improvement Action Plan, designed to ``increase employee awareness of 
RAND survey results; provide transparent communication of workforce 
culture objectives, programs, and improvements and associated 
implementation time lines; [and] demonstrate continued leadership 
commitment to [FEMA's] core values.''\27\ The action plan included 3-, 
6-, and 12-month implementation plans for increasing: (1) Engagement 
and advocacy, (2) training and education, (3) messaging and 
communications, (4) employee resources, (5) performance and 
accountability, and (6) monitoring and assessment. Together, these 
efforts were intended to ``ensure FEMA remains a safe workplace free of 
harassment and discrimination.''\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \27\ FEMA, Culture Improvement Action Plan, December 2020, p. 1, 
https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_culture-
improvement-action-plan_2020.pdf.
    \28\ FEMA, 2020, p. 14.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In addition, to understand whether efforts to reduce prevalence are 
succeeding, FEMA asked HSOAC researchers to repeat the workforce survey 
2 years after the first survey had been administered. We have fielded 
this second survey and are in the course of analyzing the results in 
order to complete that study prior to public release.
    Question 6a. Your testimony states that the RAND Corporation 
estimated that 29 percent of FEMA employees experienced a sex- or race/
ethnicity-based civil rights violation in the past year, with many of 
these employees reportedly experiencing both types of violations.
    What are some examples of such violations that occur most commonly 
within the FEMA workforce and how do these violations affect employee 
morale?
    Question 6b. In response to RAND's report, FEMA issued a Culture 
Action Improvement Plan. What are your thoughts on this plan? Has this 
plan provided sufficient initiatives or plans on how the agency should 
prevent and/or mitigate these types of violations?
    Answer. We used behaviorally-based survey measures to estimate the 
percentage of FEMA employees who had experienced at least one civil 
rights violation in the preceding year. These measures first documented 
inappropriate workplace behaviors, and then, where applicable, we 
followed these initial screening questions with questions to assess 
additional legal requirements necessary for these experiences to rise 
to the level of a civil rights violation, such as questions that assess 
persistence or whether most people would consider the behavior 
offensive--this last being the ``reasonable person'' standard. For 
exemplars as to what types of behaviors civil rights violations 
included, in Table 1 and Table 2 we provide the top 5 most frequently 
chosen example behaviors for gender-based/sexual behaviors and race/
ethnicity-based behaviors, respectively.\29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \29\ In the full report, see Table 3.2 for additional gender-based/
sexual inappropriate workplace behaviors, Table 6.1 for additional 
racial/ethnic harassment inappropriate workplace behaviors, and Table 
6.3 for racial/ethnic discrimination inappropriate workplace behaviors. 
Note that Table 2 in this document does not show racial/ethnic 
discrimination inappropriate workplace behaviors because none of them 
were endorsed as frequently as the harassment behaviors.

 TABLE 1.--ESTIMATED PERCENTAGE OF FEMA EMPLOYEES WHO HAD EXPERIENCED GENDER-BASED/SEXUAL (SEXIST) INAPPROPRIATE
                              WORKPLACE BEHAVIORS IN THE PRECEDING YEAR, BY GENDER
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    Type of Behavior                            Men               Women             Overall
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hostile work environment sexual harassment behavior:
      Repeatedly tell sexual jokes that made you             4.4 (3.8-5.2)      7.6 (6.8-8.5)      6.0 (5.5-6.6)
       uncomfortable, angry, or upset..................
Hostile work environment gender-based (sexist)
 harassment behavior:
      Made you uncomfortable, angry, or upset by             5.0 (4.4-5.8)   14.5 (13.4-15.6)     9.8 (9.1-10.5)
       ignoring or excluding you because [you are a man/
       you are a woman/of your gender].................
      Made you uncomfortable, angry, or upset by making      3.3 (2.8-3.9)    10.5 (9.6-11.5)      6.9 (6.3-7.5)
       sexist comments about your gender...............
Gender discrimination:
      Make it harder for you to get a promotion or a         6.4 (5.6-7.4)     9.7 (8.8-10.7)      8.1 (7.4-8.8)
       new position because [you are a man/you are a
       woman/of your gender]...........................
      Assign you to either an undesirable or                 4.6 (3.8-5.6)     9.6 (8.7-10.7)      7.1 (6.5-7.8)
       unimportant task because [you are a man/you are
       a woman/of your gender].........................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: The 95-percent confidence interval for each estimate is indicated in parentheses.


  TABLE 2.--ESTIMATED PERCENTAGE OF FEMA EMPLOYEES WHO HAD EXPERIENCED EACH RACIAL/ETHNIC HARASSMENT BEHAVIOR IN THE PRECEDING YEAR, BY RACE/ETHNICITY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                                           Unknown Race/
              Someone from Work                    White       African American        Hispanic              Other           Ethnicity        Overall
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Made you uncomfortable, angry, or upset by     6.2 (5.4-7.0)    15.1 (13.3-17.1)    11.6 (10.0-13.3)     10.2 (7.2-14.3)  7.8 (5.4-11.2)  9.3 (8.6-10.0)
 showing you a lack of respect because of
 your race/ethnicity........................
Made you uncomfortable, angry, or upset by     7.1 (6.3-8.0)      9.8 (8.3-11.5)     10.0 (8.5-11.8)     12.0 (8.7-16.3)  7.6 (5.1-11.1)   8.4 (7.7-9.1)
 telling racial/ethnic jokes................
Made you uncomfortable, angry, or upset by     5.0 (4.3-5.8)      8.5 (7.1-10.3)      9.1 (7.7-10.7)     13.1 (9.5-17.8)   6.6 (4.4-9.8)   6.8 (6.2-7.5)
 insulting your racial/ethnic group.........
Used a racial/ethnic term that made you        6.0 (5.2-6.8)       6.7 (5.5-8.1)       5.8 (4.7-7.1)      8.6 (5.7-12.8)   5.0 (3.0-8.3)   6.2 (5.6-6.8)
 uncomfortable, angry, or upset.............
Made you uncomfortable, angry, or upset by     3.4 (2.8-4.1)       7.5 (6.3-8.9)     11.2 (9.6-13.0)      9.6 (6.5-13.9)   4.4 (2.7-7.3)   5.8 (5.2-6.3)
 making a comment about the way people in
 your racial/ethnic group talk..............
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: The 95-percent confidence interval for each estimate is indicated in parentheses.

    We did not assess morale in our study. However, for an employee 
categorized as having experienced harassment or discrimination in the 
preceding year, the survey included an item that asked whether they had 
taken ``a sick day or any other type of leave'' as a consequence of the 
situation. The survey also included an item asking whether the 
upsetting situation made them want to quit. Although neither item 
assesses morale directly, they provide a very basic indication of 
potential productivity and retention issues. Many victims indicated 
having used at least 1 leave day as a result of the situation, varying 
from 16.4 percent of racial/ethnic harassment victims to 39.9 percent 
of racial/ethnic discrimination victims. In addition, about one-third 
of employees who had experienced harassment (28.6 to 31.3 percent) 
indicated that the situation made them ``want to quit.'' Employees who 
had experienced discrimination were twice as likely to want to leave 
their positions; nearly two-thirds indicated that the situation made 
them ``want to quit'' (57.8 to 65.3 percent).\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \30\ See Farris et al., 2020, pp. 77-78, for more in-depth 
description.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As you note, FEMA published the Culture Improvement Action Plan, 
designed to ``increase employee awareness of RAND survey results; 
provide transparent communication of workforce culture objectives, 
programs, and improvements and associated implementation time lines; 
[and] demonstrate continued leadership commitment to [FEMA's] core 
values.''\31\ The action plan included 3-, 6-, and 12-month 
implementation plans for increasing: (1) Engagement and advocacy, (2) 
training and education, (3) messaging and communications, (4) employee 
resources, (5) performance and accountability, and (6) monitoring and 
assessment.
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    \31\ FEMA, 2020, p. 1.
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    We did not assess this plan systematically and so cannot speak to 
specifics of its implementation. That said, as we noted in our report, 
a comprehensive and holistic set of interventions that incentivize 
professional and respectful workplace behavior can help leaders ensure 
that the FEMA work environment is one in which individual tendencies 
toward negative behavior are suppressed. Certainly, as described, the 
intent of the plan appears to be to develop such a comprehensive and 
holistic set of interventions with an emphasis on transparency.
    I would note that the evidence base for exactly what 
recommendations to implement when you have a high rate of civil rights 
violations in an organization tends to be sparse. This means that 
specific and detailed recommendations are hard to come by in the 
literature, so interventions that appear reasonable and are paired with 
reasonable plans to assess how well they are working are key. To the 
extent that FEMA's plans both seem reasonable and include a measurement 
component to make sure they are working rather than just providing 
liability protection, they are on the right track. If implementation of 
some aspects is less successful, trying something different should not 
be perceived as failure but rather FEMA being in the forefront of 
transparent efforts to alleviate its challenges.
    Question 7. The RAND report states that, ``for each type of 
discrimination, 35 percent or more indicated that they were subject to 
retaliation.'' However, the report is unclear as to whether an 
evaluation of how supervisors handle these issues is a part of the 
performance review cycle. Since the publication of this report, do you 
know if FEMA has updated their performance evaluations to include this 
criteria?
    Answer. We do not have this information. A representative from FEMA 
would likely be able to speak to that issue.
      Question From Honorable Diana Harshbarger for Carra S. Sims
    Question. In your view, would awarding FEMA contracts to 
contractors physically located near disaster sites produce favorable 
outcomes both by expediting the process of getting boots on the ground 
and by providing work to residents affected by the disaster? Should 
FEMA consider updating their contracting processes to prioritize 
contractors located near the disaster site?
    Answer. Our study did not speak to these issues, so this is not a 
question we would be able to answer.
         Question From Honorable Peter Meijer for Carra S. Sims
    Question. Given the challenges the FEMA workforce has faced over 
the past few years, such as staff shortages and burn-out, what is the 
most critical step FEMA should take to ensure it can respond adequately 
to hurricanes and wildfires in 2022? Could you tell us, to your own 
knowledge, if FEMA has implemented this action?
    Answer. Our study deals with harassment and discrimination rather 
than staffing or burn-out, although harassment and discrimination 
definitely have an impact on employee well-being and can affect 
retention. Given the scope of our study, and suggestions of challenges 
FEMA faces in the domains of employee climate for harassment, 
perceptions surrounding employees' reporting of civil rights 
violations, and subsequent retaliation, we recommended that FEMA ensure 
that leaders at all levels know what to do with a report and have the 
tools at hand to take action (including a familiarity and comfort with 
lower levels of sanctions, such as talking with the offender about 
appropriate behavior). We also suggested that FEMA track interventions 
to achieve these aims in order to determine whether they worked and 
increase transparency surrounding these issues.
    FEMA has put a plan in place--the Culture Improvement Action Plan--
to help implement changes,\32\ but the scope of our follow-on survey 
does not include assessing that plan or its implementation. However, 
the public release of the plan itself does speak to an increase in 
transparency. For further details on the success of the implementation, 
I would recommend that you speak to FEMA.
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    \32\ See FEMA, 2020.
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