Finance and Budgeting
Mission and Goals of the Organization
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA's stated mission also encompasses its goals. The mission statement is "to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain and improve our capability to protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate all hazards" ("About the Agency," 2016) This mission is fairly sweeping, allowing the organization substantial scope to handle a wide range of issues. From a budgetary perspective, there are several implications of this mission. First, there are preventative measures, which implies that FEMA will have certain ongoing programs regardless of whether any emergencies arise. There will also need to be an infrastructure in place to handle disasters, and this infrastructure will need regular funding. The mission also specifically addresses the need to respond to hazards, and the unpredictable nature of these hazards means that FEMA will need to have funds ready to mobilize quickly in the event of a disaster. Disasters range from those that are somewhat predictable ahead of time, such as hurricanes, to things like earthquakes that happen without warning.
Some of the current issues that FEMA is dealing with are as follows. It is assisting with Health and Human Services in the Flint water crisis. It is providing frontline assistance in Missouri and Mississippi in specific counties for the tornadoes, floods and other weather conditions of December, 2015. FEMA had also previously responded to flooding in South Carolina in October, 2015. An example of one of FEMA's ongoing programs is the Youth Preparedness Council, which was formed in 2012 to help mobilize young people in disaster mitigation. FEMA also has things like an app that can be used to help people understand the organization when there is no crisis, but also to directly link those in need of response with FEMA during times of crisis.
The organizational structure of FEMA begins with a corporate superstructure with the Department of Homeland Security under Administrator W. Craig Fugate. There are a number of offices that handle general issues at a national level, such as legal affairs, finance, law enforcement, grant programs and neighborhood partnerships. There are also a number of regional offices for ten different regions of the country. There are specific administrators for things like mitigation, insurance, response and recovery, fire, and functional groupings like human capital, procurement and information ("FEMA Organizational Chart," 2015).
II. Ethical Considerations
Schervish and Havens (2015) provide some insight into the ethical considerations faced by FEMA. The agency's role in disaster mitigation, readiness and response was born out of ethical considerations. The existence of FEMA is part of the social contract between U.S. taxpayers and their government, in that disaster recovery is essentially a public good. Individuals and corporations can assist in disaster recovery, but as disasters affect entire communities on a large scale, and the nature of disaster management is comprehensive, only an agency as powerful as the federal government, with its resource base, formal authority and ability to coordinate, can help a region to recover effectively, especially in areas where disaster recovery would not be profitable for a private entity. Thus, FEMA has a particular moral authority and its formation closed an ethical gap in the structure of the federal government.
FEMA's status as an agency within Homeland Security also hints at the ethics of the organization. Disasters weaken the nation as a whole. Without the ability to manage disasters, and recover from them, the nation is more vulnerable. Thus, FEMA has a particular moral imperative that is related to national security. Having sufficient funds in its budget to perform its duties, and using those funds most efficiently, is critical to the fulfillment of the federal government's obligations to defend the nation, as per Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, which grants Congress the power to provide for the common defense, including the provision of the necessary infrastructure to perform that role.
Given the relationship between the existence of FEMA and the ethical obligations of the federal government, it stands to reason that FEMA must also perform its budgeting with the utmost ethical standards in order that it fulfill not only its obligations to Congress but also to the American taxpayer. Budget actions and decisions need to reflect the ethical mandate of the organization, and must be performed at the highest level of integrity so as to ensure that the taxpayer's money is being used to...
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