John Katko: “In the last 12 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has provided almost $100 billion in disaster…”

“In the last 12 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has provided almost $100 billion in disaster relief and disaster assistance. However, a significant and increasing amount of these funds have gone to cover FEMA's administrative costs that support the delivery of disaster assistance. The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, has been looking into this for some time and found that, between fiscal year 1989 and fiscal year 2011, the percentage of disaster assistance spent on administrative costs doubled from 9 to 18 percent. While FEMA has tried to implement internal controls to keep these costs to a minimum, GAO has found that FEMA's administrative costs have not decreased. In fact, GAO estimates that internal controls could save hundreds of millions of dollars in administrative costs. S. 2109, the Directing Dollars to Disaster Relief Act of 2015, seeks to control and reduce rising administrative costs from major disasters by requiring the administrator of FEMA to develop and implement a plan to control and reduce its internal administrative costs. I would like to commend and thank the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for introducing this important oversight measure, which will save taxpayer dollars.…”