Streamline Disaster Recovery with a Risk-Based Approach

A community is ravaged by disaster. Schools, fire and police stations, municipal buildings are all gone, roadways impassable. The catastrophe ignites a response in the United States from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Through its public assistance (PA) program, FEMA distributes critical funding to help jurisdictions rebuild public services and restore safety and normalcy. FEMA’s mission demands a balance of speed in grant disbursal with appropriate reviews and inspections to minimize fraud, waste and abuse. However, when COVID-19 health guidance created complications for on-site inspections, FEMA shifted to a virtual or desktop validation process to inspect damaged public facilities. As a result, fraud risk for PA disaster grants ballooned.

Read the AGA Journal Article