Homeland Security asks lawmakers for ongoing website funding, disaster relief authority and staffing

During a hearing of the Appropriations - Government Operations Division, Homeland Security Division officials outlined five priority budget requests intended to sustain emergency operations and increase statewide mitigation capacity.

Darren Hanson, Homeland Security Division director at the Department of Emergency Services, told the committee the top requests include ongoing funding for the ND response website, an ongoing $2 million authority from the disaster relief fund, two full-time watch-center positions, federal authority to accept a pending FEMA STORM Act award and federal authority to spend excess grant funds on disaster response equipment.

The ND response website request is roughly $87,000 in general funds and would transfer operations that NDIT previously covered to the Department of Emergency Services. Hanson said the site hosts continuity-of-operations and recovery information and must be “very robust” to handle simultaneous statewide activity such as Silver and Amber alerts.

Hanson described the second priority as converting $2 million of disaster relief fund authority to ongoing authority. He said the fund has been used for responses including ice-jam and wildfire incidents, and that the division has spent roughly $120,000 of last biennium’s one-time funding and anticipates about $170,000 more this biennium for equipment repairs and personal protective items. When asked, Hanson said the disaster relief fund balance is “just under $25,000,000” now and projected to fall to about $17.3 million under current plans; committee members noted the statutory cap on the disaster relief fund sits at $20,000,000.

The division is also seeking funding for two watch-center FTEs to support a 24/7 operations model. Hanson said the center is currently staffed with temporary employees paid from grant funds, and that adding two permanent positions would help reach an industry standard staffing level of eight for continuous operations and reduce turnover.

On mitigation, the division described a federal STORM Act award of about $16,660,000 that it has not accepted because state matching authority is insufficient. Hanson said the legislature previously appropriated $1,000,000 of disaster relief fund authority as the state match; to accept the FEMA award the division says it needs an additional $1,660,000 from the disaster relief fund, bringing the total state match to roughly 10 percent. Hanson described the program as a revolving loan fund for mitigation projects (flood or water projects), modeled after longstanding EPA clean water loan programs, with terms likely around 1 percent interest for up to 20 years and potential administration fees.

The committee also heard a request for federal authority to spend up to about $660,000 to purchase disaster response equipment using excess federal grant funding that might otherwise be returned. Hanson said purchases would be phased into the agency warehouse and could include items such as shelf-stable meals and other equipment.

Finally, Hanson notified the committee that a recent wildfire received a federal disaster declaration. He said the administration expects federal authority of about $2,250,000 tied to that declaration and seeks a state match of roughly $300,000 from the disaster relief fund to access those federal dollars; Hanson described the figure as an estimate based on local reports and subject to change as claims are submitted.

The committee asked staff to provide additional detail on remaining grant balances and fund-line breakdowns; Hanson and members agreed to continue technical discussions and to bring detailed breakdowns back to the committee in the second-half of session.

Ending: Committee members reserved further decisions for later in session when final budget balances and grant details are available.