FEMA Blog

Posted by: Norman Dong, Chief Financial Officer

Today, following the release of President Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2013, Secretary Napolitano outlined a balanced approach of reductions and investments for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA.
FEMA’s budget request amplifies the Secretary’s intent, and lays out our plans to manage existing resources, reduce redundancies, enhance efficiencies, and focus on the programs that help us to fulfill our crucial emergency management mission. We have worked diligently, in recent years, to apply innovative approaches to how we do business, to streamline our processes, and to create greater program efficiencies. Here are a few examples of how these actions have influenced our fiscal 2013 budget request:

• The FY13 budget request reflects approximately $6.1B in funding for the Disaster Relief Fund, which supports a significant portion of the total Federal response to presidentially declared major disasters and emergencies.  
• We have consolidated multiple, individuals grants into a new, unified grant program that fosters our agency’s whole community approach to prepare our state, local community and tribal partners for all hazards in support of the recently announced National Preparedness Goal;
• We are making strategic investments to our workforce that establishes new training programs and a national employee credentialing program so that our employees are well equipped to provide the best possible customer service; and
• We have combined duplicative programs, such as the pre-disaster mitigation grant program, to create greater efficiency. 

We are confident that this budget will allow us to continue to fulfill our most important mission to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.