Emergency management commissioner urges more staff, stable grants and funding for public alerts

Sarah Russell, commissioner of the City Emergency Management Agency (CEMA), told the Budget Committee on May 6 that CEMA operates at far lower staffing and budget levels than comparable agencies and asked the committee to consider requests for staff and operating funds to maintain public alerting, grant compliance and preparedness work.

Russell outlined a list of requested or proposed items for FY26: replenishing outreach and safety supplies (she requested $12,000 but was allocated $2,000 in the proposed budget), funding existing software licenses (about $7,000 for active licenses such as Salamander and other services), and adding personnel — a program coordinator, an executive assistant II and two additional emergency management specialists — intended to expand planning, continuity, exercise and municipal building safety work.

The commissioner said CEMA is the city’s public alert and warning authority and is overseeing replacement of the outdoor siren system; an engineering study funded in prior budgets is nearing completion. She emphasized CEMA’s regional role on Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) and other federal grant projects but said federal grant opportunities and guidance have narrowed, complicating planning and the local match obligations needed to spend awarded funds.

Russell described the department’s limited capacity. She said Seema’s budget share — the share of the Department of Public Safety budget attributable to CEMA — has historically been less than two‑tenths of 1% and that students from Washington University’s Sustainability Exchange had found CEMA a “low outlier” compared with peer agencies that allocate 1–2% of public safety budgets to emergency management.

On grants, Russell noted continuing uncertainty at the federal level for Homeland Security and FEMA funding streams. She said delays and guidance shifts have slowed hazard mitigation buyouts tied to the 2022 flash flooding and have complicated use of cybersecurity grant funds the city has received. She urged the committee to consider sustaining local match capacity so the city can claim federal reimbursements when grants proceed.

The commissioner also described several smaller but material needs: seven AED‑style safety units as part of a larger City Hall emergency training plan (the AED ask in this hearing was made by the public safety director), printed outreach materials in multiple languages (FEMA‑supplied materials have been reduced), and the Salamander software subscription (used for resource and credential tracking) at approximately $4,000 annually.

Committee members pressed Russell about priorities. Several aldermen said they were reluctant to cut CEMA further given recent flooding, changing federal grant rules, and the agency’s role in coordinating regional response. Vice Chair Browning and others flagged the program coordinator and an executive assistant as high‑priority additions if only one position could be restored.

Russell summarized CEMA’s recent accomplishments: an active emergency operations center (EOC) transition plan into a forthcoming consolidated PSAP/EOC project, upgraded radio equipment for the mobile command vehicle, a hosted New Madrid earthquake exercise with federal partners, partnership work on an “Air Collaborative” resilience workshop for neighborhoods, and an emergency financial empowerment pilot tied to disaster resilience. She said adding staff would both increase capacity for daily planning and create redundancy so the agency can run an EOC and support external operations simultaneously.

No formal vote on CEMA’s requests occurred on May 6. Russell said she will continue discussing grants and staffing with the committee as federal guidance and local awards evolve.