Disaster recoveryComplaints grow about New Mexico’s handling of emergencies, disaster relief
New Mexico’s Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHSEM)wasformed in 2007 by consolidating the state’s Office of Homeland Security and the Emergency Management Division. It is responsible for coordinating emergency and disaster relief efforts with all levels of government, providing training to emergency managers, and analyzing security threats. DHSEM, however, has a history of failing to respond swiftly to disaster related requests, according to internal reports, e-mails, audits, and interviews with current and former employees.
In the summer of 2013, heavy rains flooded roads and damaged bridges in San Miguel County, New Mexico, resulting in damages of more than $500,000. Governor Susana Martinez issued disaster declarations for the affected counties, paving the way for the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHSEM) to access the damage and begin issuing federal and state funds for repairs. The process should have taken a few weeks, but nearly a year later, the affected counties were still waiting for relief funds.
“It was almost a year after the disaster had already been declared by the governor before I could even get the department to come out and assess the August damage,” Dennis English, San Miguel County’s emergency manager, said in an interview with theSanta Fe New Mexican. “Then we had more damage in September.”
In an 11 April letter to State Auditor Hector Balderas and former DHSEM head Gregory A. Myers, San Miguel County Manager Les Montoya noted that DHSEM officials had informed him they were “overwhelmed” with processing the amount of federal grants issued to aid disasters across the state. “It was stated they do not possess the manpower necessary to administer these funds in an accountable and timely basis,” he wrote. The delays, he added, “create an unsafe situation for many residents of San Miguel County.”
DHSEM, formed in 2007 by consolidating the state’s Office of Homeland Security and the Emergency Management Division, is responsible for coordinating emergency and disaster relief efforts with all levels of government, providing training to emergency managers, and analyzing security threats. DHSEM has a history of failing to respond swiftly to disaster related requests, according to internal reports, e-mails, audits, and interviews with current and former employees. Administrative instability, poor management, and insufficient staff restricted the department from fulfilling its objectives, says Paula Flores, a former grants supervisor who left the department in August for another position with the state. “It has never been stable, but it’s been hellacious in the last two years,” Flores said, adding that “All the pettiness that was going on affected every jurisdiction because the local governments weren’t getting what they needed from the state.”
Myers was appointed head of DHSEM in October 2011, making him the fourth person to lead the department, but he resigned in November 2014. Deputy Secretary Anita Tallarico Statman, who worked at the department for two-and-a-half-years resigned on 5 December and defends her tenure saying she tried to make the work environment more professional. “I think people are used to doing what they’ve been doing in any situation,” she said. “I think we all need a little nudge every once in a while. Some people are receptive to that and some are not.”
The New Mexican reports that at any time, DHSEM manages between $30 million and $60 million in federal grants, but Erica Cummings, who managed federal grants at the department for years, said DHSEM lacked enough staff to conduct the agencies assigned responsibilities. With sixty-six approved staff positions, many of which remains unfilled, the turnover rate has been high, and at least twenty positions have been vacant in each of the past two years- a greater than 30 percent vacancy rate, which is about double the average vacancy rate for state agencies, according to reports filed with the Legislative Finance Committee.
Florence and Cummings insist that while DHSEM staff were well qualified, the department consistently lacked good leadership and enough staff to support all activities. By March 2014, San Miguel County still had not received the already approved disaster funds, and nor had it received reimbursement for the $87,280 the county spent for repairs. A site visit from DHSEM disaster inspectors finally occurred in July 2014, after Montoya sent Myers a letter noting, “The fact this required site visit has not occurred concerns us greatly.” “I plead for your assistance in this matter,” he wrote.
The Governor’s Office, which critics say has always defended DHSEM, appointed M. Jay Mitchell to lead the department after Myers’s resignation. While Mitchell awaits confirmation by the state Senate, he has so far been “extremely impressed” by his staff. “I have been actively working with senior level staff to identify areas where we can improve and understand the existing issues with the department, and that’s an on-going process,” he wrote in an email last Friday.
