However, FEMA officials have not maintained a record of changes to systems 

requirements nor have they developed an up to date NEMIS requirements 

document.  One EP&R CIO staffer said that they have limited funding; when 

the budget gets pressed, it is always the  overhead  or administrative 

activities, such as updating requirements documentation, which are bypassed.   

Alternatives Analysis Needed  

Office of Management and Budget Circular A 130 encourages agencies to 

consider various options for providing automated systems to meet their 

mission needs.  However, by not taking the time to fully define and document 

systems requirements, it has been difficult for FEMA to evaluate viable 

alternatives to the highly complex, custom designed systems that it relies upon 

to support disaster response and recovery operations.  Because these systems 

have carried FEMA through its responsibilities over the years, senior IT 

officials said that they have made little effort to evaluate off the shelf 

products to determine if there is a simpler, commercially available, and 

possibly more effective IT alternative.  FEMA's Business Year 2006 business 

case submission to the Office of Management and Budget for NEMIS 

improvements also indicates a lack of alternatives analysis. 

Members of the EP&R CIO office speculated that off the shelf products 

would likely not meet their needs during peak emergency operations.  For 

example, according to a recent business case for the next generation of 

NEMIS, there is no plan to perform an analysis of alternative off the shelf 

products or other department systems.  The NEMIS requirements document is 

not up to date, and user input to those requirements has been limited.  NEMIS 

is a tool that stretches across multiple business functions; only by having a 

complete set of documented system requirements for each of these functions 

will the EP&R CIO be able to determine if alternative products can or cannot 

fulfill requirements. 

In addition, officials in one state agency increasingly have become aware that 

the federal government cannot compete with the private industry on 

developing systems.  According to this state agency, private industry is 

developing multiple systems to support emergency management operations.  

However, because federal systems do not always use the most up to date 

technology, it is becoming more difficult for state agencies to share 

information with the custom designed federal systems as states upgrade their 

own off the shelf systems. 

Emergency Preparedness and Response Could Better Integrate Information Technology  

with Incident Response and Recovery 

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