§5189h Agency accountability

Summary

FEMA must post detailed information online about big disaster grants, mission assignments, contracts, and monthly spending. For any public assistance grant over $1,000,000 made under section 5172, FEMA must publish within 5 days the Region, disaster declaration number, State and county, the applicant’s name and whether it’s a private nonprofit, the damage category code, the federal share amount, and the award date. For mission assignments over $1,000,000, FEMA must post within 5 days who is affected (State or Indian Tribe), the declaration, the agency assigned, the help requested, a description, the total cost estimate, amount obligated, any State/tribal cost share, the authority used, and the request date if applicable, and then update cost estimates and amounts obligated within 10 days after each month’s end until the assignment is closed. Each month FEMA must also publish a transparent budget and spending report. Within 10 days after the first day of each month it must post methodology and source data and estimates tied to the President’s budget, including carryover balances, obligations for noncatastrophic and catastrophic events by event and State, recoveries, and amounts needed for emergencies and other activities. By the 5th day of each month FEMA must publish current-year figures (appropriations, transfers, recoveries, commitments, obligations), a monthly disaster activity table (balances, obligations, recoveries), allocations for catastrophic events, spending by major categories (public assistance, individual assistance, mitigation, admin, operations, etc.), and the date funds will run out. FEMA must also post details of any contract over $1,000,000 within 10 days after the first day of each month (party, award date, amount and scope, whether it was competitively bid, and if not, why and under what authority) and give Congress an annual report within 10 days after the fiscal year ends about contracts awarded without competition. Finally, by 180 days after October 5, 2018, FEMA had to start collecting and storing contract details (disaster and project numbers, work category, parties, award date, amount, scope, performance period, and bidding info) for public assistance contracts over $1,000,000 funded under listed sections (5165b, 5170b, 5170c, 5172, 5173, 5189f, 5192), make that data available to the DHS Inspector General, GAO, and congressional committees on request, and report to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure within 365 days after October 5, 2018 about these collection efforts.