Report 2019-103 Recommendation 14 Responses

Report 2019-103: California Is Not Adequately Prepared to Protect Its Most Vulnerable Residents From Natural Disasters (Release Date: December 2019)

Recommendation #14 To: Emergency Services, Office of

To improve local jurisdictions' ability to quickly retrieve guidance and resources related to planning to meet access and functional needs during natural disasters, Cal OES should make its emergency planning guidance and resources easily available through restructuring and improving its access and functional needs library webpage by April 2020.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2021

The Access and Functional Needs (AFN) Library has been revised and an announcement of the revised library was pushed out to Cal OES regions (and their corresponding local jurisdictions), community partners throughout the state, and the Cal OES AFN Advisory Committee. Copies of the announcement and correspondences were provided to CSA via encrypted email. Link to revised library: https://www.caloes.ca.gov/cal-oes-divisions/access-functional-needs/afn-library.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

Cal OES demonstrated that it has reorganized its AFN library and provided better information for local jurisdictions on the resources that it contains.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From September 2021

The Access and Functional Needs (AFN) Library has been revised and an announcement of the revised library was pushed out to Cal OES regions (and their corresponding local jurisdictions), community partners throughout the state, and the Cal OES AFN Advisory Committee (see attached announcement and email). Link to revised library: https://www.caloes.ca.gov/cal-oes-divisions/access-functional-needs/afn-library. Supporting documentation was provided to CSA.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

1-Year Agency Response

Cal OES identified funds to restructure the AFN Library and is currently working to complete this project. Anticipated completion date, April 15, 2021.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Pending

6-Month Agency Response

Cal OES continues to identifying funds to restructure the AFN Library as a means to ensure the guidance, best practices, and informational products contained on the site are relevant, easy to find, and useful for emergency managers and the whole community.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

Cal OES is in the process of identifying funds to restructure the AFN Library as a means to ensure the guidance, best practices, and informational products contained on the site are relevant, easy to find, and useful for emergency managers and the whole community.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

As we note in the report, until Cal OES improves the access and functional needs webpage, local jurisdictions attempting to use the webpage will face challenges in locating the information that would be most useful to them in planning to meet access and functional needs during natural disasters. For that reason, we recommended that Cal OES improve its webpage by April 2020. However, Cal OES indicates in its response that it will not restructure the webpage until December 2020. Until it does so in a way that makes the guidance and resources on the webpage easily available to those who need it, this recommendation will not be fully implemented.

All Recommendations in 2019-103

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.