FEMA Public Assistance Performance Goals

FEMA established performance measures to evaluate people and processes, ensuring continuous program improvement and compliance with the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993. The GPRA requires each agency to establish a set of performance measures for Congress to gauge the efficiency and effectiveness of an agency’s programs.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently issued a report on the Public Assistance (PA) Grant Program entitled, Assessment of FEMA’s Public Assistance Program Policies and Procedures (OIG-10-26, December 2009). The OIG concluded that the PA Program’s established performance goals did not allow for the effects of different sized disasters. The OIG recommended that the performance goals be based on different sizes of disasters. Based on the OIG’s recommendations, FEMA has revised performance goals for funding obligations and project closeouts. However, FEMA will continue to measure customer satisfactions based on a 90% customer satisfaction rating for all disasters, as this provides an accurate reflection of customers’ satisfaction with the PA Program.

FEMA has established obligation metrics for the following categories of disasters for the purpose of measuring PA Program performance:

Small Disasters $0-$10 million
Medium Disasters $10-$100 million
Large Disasters $100-$500 million
Very Large Disasters $500 million or more

FEMA will measure Public Assistance Program performance against these objectives:

Performance Goal 1: Obligate 50% of funding within:

90 days for disasters up to $10 million
150 days for disasters between $10 – $100 million
200 days for disasters between $100 – $500 million
365 days for disasters over $500 million

Performance Goal 2: Obligate 80% of funding within:

180 days for disasters up to $10 million
365 days for disasters between $10-$100 million
365 days for disasters between $100-$500 million
730 days for disasters over $500 million

Performance Goals 3: Customer Satisfaction Ratings – Achieve at least 90% customer satisfaction for all disasters.

The mission of FEMA’s PA Program is assist communities in recovering from the devastating effects of disasters by providing technical assistance and financial grants in an efficient, effective, consistent and customer-friendly manner.