Red Cross provides FEMA with regular reports
Published 7:00 pm Wednesday, November 15, 2017
What services does FEMA reimburse the Red Cross for? Why? Is there oversight that determines that Red Cross services billed to FEMA are actually received by disaster victims?
Agreements entered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross in 2010 and 2015 “established the framework for the organizations to cooperatively lead mass care activities as outlined in the National Response Framework,” according to an agency statement provided by FEMA spokeswoman Sharon Karr.
The NRF is a nearly 60-page emergency response guide, which includes best practices and is designed, the FEMA statements says, to be “scalable, flexible and adaptable.”
“Mass care activities includes sheltering, feeding operations, emergency first aid, bulk distribution of emergency items, and collecting and providing information on victims to family members. …,” reads the agency’s statement.
“FEMA may reimburse the Red Cross for costs associated with providing the goods and services described above. Red Cross provides bimonthly activity and project reports when they are supporting these activities, including details on the goods and services provided to survivors.”
GAO reports
The Government Accountability Office in 2012 released a report on federal reimbursement of Red Cross expenses for 2008.
The GAO said all of the Red Cross reimbursement claims, submitted from July 2009 through May 2011, arrived with supporting documentation and that FEMA reviewed each claim to ensure the documentation was sufficient.
Still, a GAO report released two years ago suggested that lawmakers “consider establishing a federal mechanism for conducting regular, external, independent, and publicly disseminated evaluations of the Red Cross’s disaster assistance services in domestic disasters.”
Because the Red Cross doesn’t release its internal performance evaluations, the GAO report said, public and government confidence in the group could decline, affecting disaster readiness and response.
“This is especially true in light of questions raised by the federal government and others in recent years about the organization’s performance in disasters,” the report reads.
“Given the Red Cross’s status as an instrumentality of the United States and the critical responsibilities assigned to it by its federal charter and by federal policies, the federal government has a clear stake and role in ensuring that proper oversight takes place.”
In a written response appended to the 2015 report, the Red Cross said that “governance structure and evaluation mechanisms are appropriate” for a private, nonprofit group.
But the Red Cross expressed a willingness “to participate in additional reviews and evaluations activities convened by FEMA and other government partners.”
For more, visit www.gao.gov.
