FEMA Is Spending Billions, and Some Questionable Companies Are Getting Work

This year’s record hurricane season has led to the biggest spike in government disaster contracts in more than a decade, testing the government’s ability to manage the unpredictable and growing costs of climate change. Since Hurricane Harvey struck Texas on Aug. 25, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded $2.2 billion in contracts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government. That’s about twice what the agency typically awards over an entire year.

With parts of Florida, Texas, and Puerto Rico in desperate need of help, FEMA is under pressure to put money to work as fast as possible. One way to speed things up is to bypass the usual competitive bidding process. In the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, FEMA awarded $178 million in noncompete contracts, more than twice as much as the year before. The danger in sidestepping competitive bidding is that the government may pay more than it needs to and that companies may not get the necessary scrutiny. And with 85 percent of its staff deployed to cope with the effects of natural disasters around the country, FEMA’s personnel may have a harder time than usual making sure contractors are doing their jobs. “There’s not enough people to go around,” says Sandra Knight, a former deputy associate administrator at FEMA who’s now at Dawson & Associates, a Washington consulting firm. “They’re moving 200 miles an hour.”