Government Alignment

The need for governmental alignment seems obvious. If governmental agencies are not aligned, there can be intelligent interaction among them. And without each agency knowing and understanding the work of other agencies, it is likely that services and programs will be duplicated, thus leading to a waste of resources and taxpayer dollars.

This concept becomes even more essential during times of emergency. If agencies are not aligned, little interaction can take place at a time when communication should be at its peak performance. When impacted families or individuals seek services or resources from various state agencies that have no idea about the services or resources provided by their fellow agencies, confusion can abound at a time when anxiety levels are already spiked. Further, an unaligned governmental system likely will be unable to know which citizens have received which resources, which citizens have received duplicate resources, and which citizens still remain to be served.

This very situation happened in Louisiana in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita when the state could not accurately determine which of its citizens needed services, which of its citizens received services, or where citizens still seeking services resided. But this is not only a situation isolated within the state government. The federal government also displayed extreme difficulties in locating people within its programs, determining the needs of those people within the various federal programs, or determine the whereabliust of people within the program, those who have been transitioned out of the program, and those who were deemed ineligible from the program.

In addition to alignment within the governmental sector, it is important for the government sector to be aligned with the non-profit and private sectors in order to most efficiently and effectively serve the public during times of emergency. This means that each level of government (national, state, and local) must align itself with the non-profit sector and the private sector so that key services and resources can be distributed to an impacted area during and after an emergency or disaster.

For example, if the federal government does its job perfectly but the state government in an impacted area is not ready to receive or distribute federal resources, the initiative is a failure. Further, if the federal and state governments do their jobs perfectly but the local governments cannot receive or disburse resources properly, again the entire system is a failure. This failure will also occur should the non-profit sector not be aligned within the system or the private sector not be aligned within the system.

Key Recovery Corps positions related to government alignment:

• Alignment among the governmental sector, non-profit secor, and private sector is essential in order to ensure efficient and effective provision of services and resources to those impacted by disasters
• Governmental systems must be aligned in order to eliminate duplication of services and waste
• Without the proper alignment within all sectors and all of the agencies and organizations within those sectors, the entire recovery system will falter and fail in its efforts to serve effectively and efficiently the needs of those impacted American citizens.