On June 12, FEMA released another Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making (ANPRM) on its disaster deductible proposal “in an effort to offer the public a more detailed deductible concept upon which to provide additional feedback,” according to the agency. You can view the ANPRM here – the deadline for comments is April 12. NACo will be submitting comments and will seek guidance on its submission from Justice and Public Safety Committee members.

This is the second ANPRM that FEMA has released on the disaster deductible concept – which would require recipients of FEMA Public Assistance funds to meet a predetermined level of financial or other commitment before receiving funding. According to FEMA, the initial proposal (to which more than 100 different entities responded through the public comment period) was put forth in response to recommendations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General that federal spending on disasters should be reduced. FEMA views the deductible proposal as way to incentivize mitigation a more equitable means of reducing federal spending than decreasing thresholds of eligibility for federal disaster funds – which has often been discussed as a means of reducing spending.

NACo and several of our fellow state and local organizations in D.C. expressed strong concerns about the deductible proposal and its potential for shifting costs of disaster recovery from the federal government to the state and local level. You can view NACo’s comments on the first disaster deductible ANPRM here.

Contributed by: Patrick Sieng | AOC Public Safety Policy Manager