Finance’s involvement may mean the difference between recovering nothing and recovering 93.75% of costs after declared emergency.

By Marcus Pimentel, CSMFO Communication Chair and Assistant Director of Health (Santa Cruz County)

When the next catastrophic earthquake or wildfire comes to your California community, how will your finance team respond? What about for a 500-year flood? Or a cyber-attack on your financial and human resources (HR) systems? Are you ready to maximize and recover up to 93.75% of your costs for staff, materials, and damages during and after a disaster?

On August 14, 2019, emergency management leaders from the City and County of San Francisco visited the CSFMO East Bay Chapter. They presented a two-part session on duties during a declared emergency and the vigilance your entire agency requires in the face of ever-increasing cyber threats.

We thank Steve Flaherty, Nelson Ho, and Alec Tune from the City and County of San Francisco for their presentation. Here’s some key points from their presentation on how you might prepare your team with a tabletop exercise or discussion to effectively manage through Federal disaster assistance.

    • Within your existing financial system, determine how you can best track and record project costs and explore creating project templates that can be quickly setup after an emergency.
    • Under FEMA, there are 2 groups of financial assistance; Emergency Work (Debris removal and “emergency” protective measures) and Permanent Work for your facilities (5 facility categories, such as “Roads & Bridges” and “Parks, Recreational Facilities & Other”).
    • Within California’s emergency system (SEMS), Finance & Admin is responsible for: Timekeeping, Cost Accounting, Purchasing, Compensation & Claims, and Recovery.
    • Timekeeping duties include tracking staff labor, mutual aid support, and volunteers. The key form front line staff and managers should use is ICS 214 (Activity Log Forms)
    • Cost Accounting duties include tracking all major costs whether paid by petty cash, pre-established charge accounts, or credit cards. Types of cost categories are labor, equipment, materials, contractors, and in-kind support & monetary donations. The key form staff and managers will use is ICS 213 RR (Resource Request Form). Staff should be familiar with FEMA’s schedule of equipment rates.
    • Purchase Unit duties include pre-planning for logistics with equipment and facility rental companies, buying supplies such as food and water and other necessary equipment, and contracting for services. The key for FEMA reimbursement is obtaining and documenting 3 bids. Key resources include established vendor lists, ready-to-issue pre-paid debit/credit cards, and documentation of“continuity” of payment.
    • Compensation & Claims Unit duties include documenting staff/volunteer or other responder injuries & illness and recording all private property damage “caused by your agency’s responders”. Key forms are ICS 226 (Injury Report Log), e3301 (Workers’ Compensation Claim Form), and e3267 (Disaster Service Worker-DSW Volunteer Workers’ Compensation Claim Form).
    • The Recovery Unit duties are related to future reimbursement claims and include tracking all initial damage estimates, keeping the list of all “projects” initiated, documenting damages with “geotagged” pictures, and maintaining project files. The key form is the Cal EOC IDE Form. A key resource is using a picture app/software that includes geotagging to provide evidence about the location of the damage.

San Francisco’s team stressed the importance of integrating finance with your local emergency management functions or organizations. Often, front line staff and project managers might not recognize how critical it is to work with Finance early on in getting bids, paying vendors, and logging equipment and staff used. Suggestions on having Finance support all staff over the horizon of managing an event and maximizing reimbursements are:

    • Be sure Finance is included as a key seat at meetings during, but especially after, an event has occurred. Remember, if everyone does their job and documents costs appropriately, your agency can recover up to 93.75% of their costs.
    • Talk to your peer agencies that have experience with disasters to find their best practices about keeping finance in the “early” discussions.
    • Don’t wait to be asked. Reach out regularly to your EOC coordinator and agency leader’s staff to be sure front-line staff and managers are recording their time and materials properly while their memories are fresh.

And be sure and re-read our special edition of the CSFMO Magazine that includes still timely tips and deep diving articles for “Emergency Preparedness” (September 2017) [<– insert link to Sept 2017 here: https://issuu.com/csmfo/docs/csmfo-magazine-september-2017/34 ]. Included in this edition were features on being a “First Care Provider” in an emergency, A Finance Director’s Role in an Emergency Operations Center, The Quicksand of Post-Disaster Funding, Disaster Preparedness 101, and several features on protecting and recovering your technology in a disaster.

The City and County of San Francisco staff concluded their presentation with a special focus about cyber-security breaches and recovering your systems when they fail. We’ll review these tips in an upcoming feature, so stay tuned.

CSMFO East Bay Chapter Chair Margaret O’Brien (City of Oakland) was grateful for the City and County of San Francisco’s team and shared, “I want to personally thank the emergency management leaders from City and County of San Francisco for their well-crafted and highly informative presentation and Craig (Boyer) for his help. I trust our East Bay members will use the information to thoughtfully provoke conversations with their agencies.”

City and County of San Francisco Presenters:

Steve Flaherty, Principal Auditor, City and County of San Francisco
Steve Flaherty is a principal auditor with the City and County of San Francisco, Controller’s Office. Steve uses his extensive experience in risk assessment, process review, and program evaluation to help ensure the security of San Francisco’s systems, data, and networks. Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in Business-Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant, Certified Internal Auditor, and Certified Fraud Examiner.

Nelson Ho, Supervising IT Auditor, City and County of San Francisco
Nelson Ho is an information technology audit manager at the City and County of San Francisco, Controller’s Office. Nelson acquired more than 20 years of IT security audit and cybersecurity program management experience while working for Intel Corporation. Since joining the City and County of San Francisco, Nelson has been involved in citywide IT audit and cybersecurity efforts and initiatives, including consultation on information security frameworks, policies and standards, network penetration testing, security vulnerability assessments, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance and payment card industry (PCI) compliance. Nelson is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science with a concentration in Math.

Alec S. Tune, Emergency Manager, City and County of San Francisco
Alec Tune is Emergency Manager at the City and County of San Francisco, Controller’s Office, where he specializes in financial and administrative aspects of emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. With ten years of experience as a professional emergency manager, Alec’s public sector and consulting experience includes preparing the emergency operations plan and damage assessment protocol for one of the nation’s largest seaports; preparing guidance for local governments on administering humanitarian relief following catastrophic incidents; and supporting State and local government individual and community disaster preparedness programs from the Federal level. He holds an M. P. A. degree from San Francisco State University, a B. A. in Economics, and completed graduate coursework in Urban Planning at Columbia University in the City of New York.

Margaret O’Brien (Oakland) is the CSFMO Chapter Chair for the East Bay and member of CSMFO’s Membership Committee. Craig Boyer (County of Alameda) is on three CSMFO committees, Membership, Professional Standards, and Recognition.

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Marcus Pimentel is the Assistant Director of Health of the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency. Marcus serves CSMFO as the Chair of the Communication Committee and editor of CSFMO News. Marcus has over 20 years of local government finance and administration experience in the Monterey Bay area and is an active member of CSMFO. Marcus supports the 2019 Host Committee and CSMFO Membership Committee. He is proud of his family’s Portuguese heritage and is grateful for his wife Laurie and daughters Kaitlynn and Kirsten.

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