By Dale Barnett
Elmore/Autauga News
Words and language do matter, especially when it comes to verbiage in state and federal laws. Sometimes a slight oversight of proper terms or descriptions can affect many people
Alabama House Representative Allen Treadway, (R-District 51, Birmingham) introduced bill HB3 to the state legislation in January 2022, for the recent 2022 legislative session that has ended. This was to address to an issue that effected all the Alabama counties concerning the federal funds allocated to combat the coronavirus under the CARES act.
The federal funds allocated to the states under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES) directed funds to the state, county and city public safety and homeland security departments for supplies and assisting the public. One of the major problems with the wording of the federal bill, officials say, is that the State EMA and county EMA departments were left out of receiving any funds.
Alabama State Emergency Management Agency and the county EMA departments did not have any direct mention of public safety or homeland security duties in their defined duties and descriptions under state laws. Most of the state EMA departments were vital in assisting the public during the pandemic including the Elmore and Autauga County EMA departments. These EMA departments were vital in securing supplies such as gloves and masks, setting up testing sites, and vaccine sites.
Back in 1944, the U.S. Congress passed section 361 of the Public Health Services Act (42 United States Code Section 264), which reads “authorizes the Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) to make and enforce regulations necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the Unites States and from one state or possession into another.” (Per National Institute for Health) and allowed the President to add diseases to the list. The federal agencies of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the HHS were all agencies assigned to handle any defined federal pandemics. The department of Homeland Security was later added to the agencies to assist in any pandemics. Congress further added to the Public Services Act in 2019 by adding section 362, which deals more directly with the Coronavirus. The Coronavirus was added to the list by President Trump in 2019. Both section 361 and 362 have language discussing federal and state agencies with defined public safety duties.
Under the federal CARES Act passed by Congress in 2020 and extended in 2021, $350 billion in federal funds was allocated to the states to assist with public safety departments and agencies with supplies and costs associated with dealing with the coronavirus under Section 361, Section 362 and the federal Treasury Department. These funds were also allowed to be used for salaries and overtime for state and county employees assigned to handles duties associated with pandemic duties. Since most of the counties in Alabama enlisted the aid of their EMA departments to handle various duties of the pandemic, these departments incurred tremendous overtime and supply costs that were not covered under the CARES Act due to the lack of “public safety” as language defined under the State EMA department job titles.
Representative Treadway’s bill, HB3, was defined by him as follows:
“Every day in Alabama, emergency managers work to help us mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from the myriad of disasters that have become commonplace here in our state. From tornadoes and hurricanes to flash floods and chemical spills to a now two-year health pandemic, emergency managers are at the epicenter of daily efforts to protect the lives and property of Alabama citizens.
“Despite the role that Alabama emergency managers undoubtedly play in public safety, current state law does not specifically acknowledge the public safety services provided by emergency management personnel. And such a simple reference, or lack thereof, has been the difference in millions of dollars for emergency management operations.
As it stands today, emergency management agencies in Alabama are often excluded from federal funding opportunities and grants because emergency management is not statutorily recognized in our state as a public safety service. This bill seeks to provide our emergency management agencies with better access to federal funding opportunities by simply clarifying in Alabama law that emergency management functions indeed include ‘public safety services.’”
The Alabama Senate passed HB3 on March 15, 2022, and on Tuesday, April 20, 2022, Governor Ivey signed the bill into law with several county EMA directors attending, including Elmore County Director Keith Barnett and Autauga Director Ernie Baggett. Barnett said the county EMA departments have always been a vital part of providing public safety services so it was great to see this bill passed, especially for any future situations involving funds that could assist the county.
While impossible to directly pinpoint the amount of funds lost to both Elmore and Autauga Counties and the EMA departments due to the lack of language that included public safety in their job descriptions, it was surely a significant amount, officials said, based on the amount of work, overtime and supplies these departments have provided over the last two years.
