At the time of the audit, 51 full-time acquisition workers were managing hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts. Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said yesterday that contracting officials are ramping up to handle the extra work and that the department's IG office has received additional funding to closely monitor Katrina contracts.
A FEMA spokesman said the agency "has extensive experience in acquiring the products and services required in disaster response and recovery operations." He said FEMA has already obligated about $9 billion for Katrina relief efforts.
Some of the agency's approximately 2,500 full-time employees think the reliance on contractors is driving away the agency's best talent. Last year, Pleasant Mann, then-president of the union representing FEMA headquarters workers, wrote a letter to congressional leaders warning that the nation was becoming more vulnerable. "The ability of FEMA to manage emergencies and disasters is being seriously eroded," he wrote. "Our professional staff are being systematically replaced by politically connected novices and contractors who have now 'burrowed in' to civil service jobs."
FEMA insiders said a no-bid Rand Corp. contract to help the Homeland Security Department develop the definitive plan for how the nation would respond to an emergency illustrates just how pervasive the contractors' role has become. The National Response Plan was mandated by the White House after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Rather than turn to FEMA employees to craft the new document, according to those familiar with the process, the agency tapped Rand for the work. But the contractor's first draft was rejected by state and local emergency responders who thought Rand had not incorporated lessons from previous disasters.
"There were a lot of things not considered. And I think that was from the fact that the contractor was not a practitioner [of emergency response]," said Dewayne West, president of the International Association of Emergency Managers, a group of local first responders. "So they kind of said, 'We're going to can this one. Let's start over.' "
Bruce Don, a Rand senior researcher who worked on the project, called the experience "frustrating" and said government officials were resistant to change.
Rand's role was subsequently reduced, and government officials wrote the final document. It became the basis for the government's efforts to manage Katrina.
Whether the lackluster response to Katrina was because of the plan or in spite of it will undoubtedly be the subject of numerous reviews, government officials said. So, too, will the issue of contractor performance.
Thousands of people went for days without adequate food and water at the Superdome, at the New Orleans convention center and on rooftops throughout the flooded region, according to news reports, though it is unclear who was to blame.
On the Friday before Katrina hit, Lipsey Mountain Spring Water, FEMA's bottled water supplier, got a call from the Army Corps of Engineers and began shipping truckloads to the region, according to President Joe Lipsey III. The contract calls for the Norcross, Ga., company to get water to sites within 24 hours, and Lipsey said he has developed a nationwide network of 170 suppliers.
The first trucks headed toward Pensacola, Fla., he said. But when the storm turned west, the corps directed Lipsey's deliveries to three federal installations in Mississippi and one in Louisiana. From those staging areas, he said, corps officials direct where it is delivered. So far Lipsey's network has delivered the equivalent of 198 million half-liter bottles of water, compared with 140 million in the nine-week period last year when four hurricanes hit Florida, he said.
Lipsey, a Louisiana native, said despite the criticism, the agency and the corps "are doing an incredible job," especially given the flooding and breaks in the bridge and highway system.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the ranking minority member on the Senate committee overseeing FEMA, said last night that he has discussed with Collins the idea of a special IG to monitor Katrina spending. "Congress has to be very aggressive in making sure that in our haste to help we aren't wasting an enormous amount of public money, or worse, having it used in a way that's corrupt," he said.
Staff writer Renae Merle contributed to this report.
