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Emergency management highlights public outreach and warns state funding cut for WebEOC could cost county
Summary
Pinellas County emergency management described robust outreach and preparedness work and warned that a state funding cut for county WebEOC subscriptions would force the county to absorb roughly $125,000 annually for that critical incident-management platform.
Pinellas County Emergency Management briefed commissioners on preparedness outreach, sheltering operations and a newly identified funding shortfall for the county’s WebEOC incident‑management subscription.
Kathy Perkins, director of Emergency Management, said the office has heavily ramped outreach and preparedness activities: the county’s disaster website received more than 850,000 hits during the hurricane expo day and the department ran more than 140 community training events in the fiscal year, reaching roughly 13,000 residents. Perkins highlighted recent outreach to Spanish‑speaking residents and the annual faith‑based preparedness summit, which saw about 70 participating congregations.
Perkins reviewed storm‑season response experience, noting the department’s role in special‑needs sheltering and the logistical complexity of supporting thousands of shelter clients following last season’s storms. She and county staff said the department is implementing shelter hardening projects at county facilities this summer and expanding mitigation expos to provide residents with information about flood and wind mitigation.
A new issue arose late in the budget process: Perkins said the state has notified counties the portion of the WebEOC subscription the state previously funded will end July 1. WebEOC is the county’s shared incident‑management and mission‑tracking platform — used by over 100 partner organizations during disasters — and Perkins provided a vendor quote of about $125,000 to continue the county’s subscription. She told the board that loss of the state contribution would be “devastating” operationally, because the county uses WebEOC to coordinate mission requests, the special‑needs registry and routing/transportation during activations.
Commissioners asked whether the state decision affected other counties and whether the status represented a short‑term gap or a permanent change. Perkins said the state change would affect all counties and that the timeframe provided little time to identify funding; county staff said they are assessing options but wanted to alert the board immediately. Perkins also thanked county and community partners for recent mutual‑aid work and said the county will continue to pursue federal grants and other mitigation and recovery funding.
No board vote occurred; staff said they would return with options for maintaining WebEOC funding and present budget alternatives for the FY26 adoption process.
