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SEMA chief outlines staffing shortfalls, Everbridge upgrades and multiyear plan as FY27 budget falls short
Summary
SEMA Commissioner Greg Favor told the Budget & Public Employees Committee that his office is still rebuilding after a critical report, that the agency meets only 5 of 73 national EMAP standards, and that recent investments (staffing, automated Everbridge alerts, a new EOC) aim to improve response even though FY27 funding was smaller than requested.
Greg Favor, commissioner of the St. Louis City Emergency Management Agency, told the Budget & Public Employees Committee on May 12 that SEMA is in the midst of a multi‑year rebuilding push after what he described as cascading failures identified in the Cardy McDonald report.
"The investigation found that SEMA was 'understaffed, underfunded, and underresourced,'" Favor said, adding that an assessment against the 73 Emergency Management Accreditation Program standards shows the agency currently meets roughly five of those benchmarks.
Favor laid out steps already under way: reclassifying positions, hiring a chief planner and a logistics manager, standing up a unified command under the mayor's executive order, conducting multi‑department tabletop exercises, and embedding National Weather Service briefings into city planning. He said SEMA has offers out to experienced emergency managers and expects to grow operational staff in the coming weeks.
On budget, Favor said SEMA was allocated just over $800,000 in the general fund for FY27, short of the roughly $1.5 million the agency initially requested. Still, he defended the agency's priorities: using a combination of city funds, an Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) that currently subsidizes up to half of several positions, and $50,000 set aside for professional services to fill planning and logistics gaps until new hires are productive.
"We requested funding for eight full‑time staff," Favor said, noting that several positions appear as 0.5 FTE in the city budget because EMPG will cover the other half. He warned the EMPG supplement is expected to phase out by the end of FY28 and said the city should plan to absorb those salaries in future budget cycles.
Favor also described recent technical upgrades to the city's Everbridge alerting service (Notify STL), calling the change "a largely autonomous alerting system" that now distributes warnings "within about 120 seconds" to more than 300,000 contact points and delivers messages in "more than 100 languages." He said those improvements speed warnings for life‑safety events and expand equity in access to urgent alerts.
Committee members pressed Favor about staffing levels, the day‑to‑day duties of new emergency management specialists, and coordination with other public safety agencies. Favor said hiring remains urgent and that a minimum, realistic staffing goal for SEMA is 11 employees for daily operations, with 14–15 suggested to meet national accreditation standards in the long term.
Favor concluded that SEMA is operationalizing previously missing systems but said the fixes will take time and sustained funding. "This will be a multi‑year process," he said, asking the committee to view requested investments as insurance for the city’s broader public‑safety architecture.
The committee asked Favor to provide a clearer breakdown of state and federal funding flows to SEMA; Favor said his office would follow up with the requested figures.
