WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Government Accountability Office is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the US federal government spends taxpayers’ money.
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has more than tripled the number of contracting officers it employs since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but it does not have a sufficient process in place to prioritize disaster workload and cohesively manage its workforce," the report, released on Tuesday, stated.
Some of the workforce growth is attributed to the establishment of the Disaster Acquisition Response Team in 2010, which has the primary mission of deploying to provide disaster contracting support, the GAO noted. The support extended to contracting for blankets and debris removal.
However, "FEMA does not have a process for prioritizing the team's work during disasters," the report pointed out. "Without such a process, FEMA is at risk of developing gaps in contract oversight during major disasters."
In 2011, FEMA established an agreement that regional contracting officers would report to headquarters supervisors for technical oversight while continuing to respond to regional supervisors for everyday operations, the GAO noted.
"This agreement has led to challenges for FEMA in cohesively managing its workforce, including heightening the potential for an environment of competing interests for the regional contracting officers," the report observed.
FEMA has not revisited this agreement on annual basis as it had agreed to, and consequently, it does not in corporate lessons learned over the past four years, the GAO concluded.
