FEMA call center operating in 2016. (Photo by Steve Zumwalt-FEMA)
In the original blueprint for FY18 funding, the Trump administration sought to cut funding for disaster relief-related programs across Federal agencies. This included cutting out the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant at Housing and Urban Development (HUD), restructuring and cutting $190 million from FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, albeit a modest increase in overall disaster relief funding. However, with the impact of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria likely affecting the United States for years, and recovery estimates ranging as high as $180 billion for Texas alone, President Trump signed H.R. 601 into law, allowing for increased disaster funding which will be used immediately for assistance and contracted recovery work.
Codified on September 8th, the appropriations act allotted a total of $15.25 billion for 3 major Federal disaster relief initiatives:
- $7.4 billion for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund
- $450 million for the SBA’s Disaster Loans Program Account
- $7.4 billion for HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program
This money is getting immediate turn-around at FEMA, and a great example of this was a contract earlier in the month that was procured through the GSA’s USA Contact IDIQ. FEMA released a solicitation at the end of August for a “Turnkey Call Center” and associated call agents which would handle disaster recovery assistance over the phone to those affected by Hurricane Harvey. By September 4th, CSRA was awarded the USA Contact task order for call centers and 1,500 temporary call agents. In its announcement of the task order award, CSRA noted the company’s ability to immediately leverage a new CSRA facility in Louisiana for call center support. With an original ceiling of $95.4 million, and a modification for another 800 call agents worth almost $46.7 million, the total value of this contract could reach over $142 million.
The expedited turn-around of this task order, in less than a week, illustrates not only the speed at which FEMA is addressing disaster recovery efforts, but also the advantage of using an IDIQ as a fast procurement vehicle. USA Contact (which CSRA won as CSC in 2008, prior to the merger with SRA International), is a 10-year vehicle worth $2.5 billion that was awarded through the GSA Office of Citizen Services, for call center services across the Federal government. As EZGovOpps predicted in our prior analysis, GSA is now working on a successor to the IDIQ which is set to expire in 2018.
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