In a highly unusual move, the Homeland Security Department inspector general’s office issued a self-criticism of previous “feel-good” evaluations of incident responses by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The “special report” dated May 23 blames a previous IG for failing to communicate auditing standards, and it also “retracts” 13 previously published reports on the agency’s Emergency Management Oversight Teams.
Changes made in 2011 by John Kelly and then-Assistant Inspector General D. Michael Beard, the report said, were not well communicated and “set the work off course and resulted in a flawed product line.” The new approach, the auditors said, caused personnel to “think of Emergency Management Oversight Team reports as 'feel good' reports — i.e., generally positive reports that typically concluded that FEMA’s initial response to a disaster was effective.”
More recent audits of FEMA’s responses to the 2017 hurricanes have been largely critical.
The retractions of reports from 2015-2017 were set in motion in July 2017, when members of the then-Republican-controlled House Oversight and Reform Committee complained about what they saw as inaccuracies. A review finalized in March 2018 resulted in the retractions, prompting the lawmakers to ask Kelly whether the disclaimers were the result of a “people problem,” a “process problem,” or a combination.
Kelly—who became acting IG after John Roth retired in November 2017—recused himself from a broader special review led by Diana Shaw, assistant inspector general for special reviews and evaluations, and delivered this spring to Deputy Inspector General Jennifer Costello.
The changes in practices introduced in 2011 affected the areas of a ..
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