MOUs with local EMAs

[BlackKnight]

ES Colleagues,

I'm looking for an example of a NHQ-approved Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) between CAP and a city or county Emergency Management Agency (EMA) that we can use as a starting point for drafting a similar MOU with our local EMAs. Please send me a message on this board if you have an MOU that you'd be willing to share. Thanks in advance!

[iowacap]

In Iowa we work close with the state and with the national guard. We are making EMA's aware of our capabilities to get more missions our way with the state. Especially with the state EMA we do a lot of photo reconnaissance for them and have done things for the department of corrections with photos among other things with the state I can give you a contact of the person that made all this possible for our wing and has worked his tail off to get where we are and he can point you in the right direction.

[Eclipse]

Talk to your State Director.

Existing MOU's cover most agencies in most states already.

No sense in overcoplicating things, or rehashing work already done.

[BlackKnight]

Thanks for the replies so far. 

In regard to working with the state director, our MOU is with the state EMA, and does not provide a mechanism for working with local agencies directly. If the local agencies want local CAP help for a smaller mission they have to go up the line and ask state EMA to request CAP support. That puts state EMA and CAP wing staff in charge of the response, which is exactly what the local EMAs want to avoid.  Until the mission grows beyond local EMA's ability to manage it they would rather not turn over control to the state. Many of these callouts tend to be false alarms (someone thought they saw an aircraft in trouble), lost hiker, etc.  When state EMA gets involved we inevitably get almost immediate statewide news media coverage and the potential for a 3-ring circus develops.

[BillB]

I think you'll find almost every Wing, if not all use the same MOU with EMA's. Last year during the hurricanes in Florida, my county EMA wanted CAP help with wate, MRE's and ice distribution. Needless to say they got no help from CAP after going up the chain to the State EMA EOC.  Add to that the CAP ES staff was reminding members not to self deploy. I think it's doubtful any Wing will allow local MOUs due to corporate liability.

[arajca]

Contact the National Legal Officer for guidance.

A couple things that will need to be addressed are:
Liability
Worker's Comp insurance
Fuel
Other consumables
Call out - needs to be through NOC
Who can call
Cadet usage - yes/no and limitations
Communications costs
Damaged/destroyed equipment repair/replacement
Limitations on activities

Plus a bunch more I can't think of right now.

Also, keep in mind, their lawyers are going to go through it as well and try to pawn liability and Worker's Comp off to CAP at a minimum, and try to get CAP to cover all expenses.

[Eclipse]

The MOU's I am referring to are national in scope and trickle to the local agencies as part of their SOP and / or relationship with their parent orgs nationally.

By State Director, I am referring to the State Director of CAP-USAF, not the EMA. 

EMA's are cooperative agencies or customers of CAP, not governing authorities.  They are not the SOLE customer by any means.

You are much better off going to your local PD/FD or city government with a list of capabilities, indicate what kind of real-world support you can reasonably offer, then provide them the 1-2-3 of contacting the NOC for assistance.

This >WILL< involve your Wing CC & CAP-USAF Director, but doesn't NOT require any intervention or involvement with a respective EMA. The initial contact, and subsequent relationship support can occur at the local unit level to the local request group.

ANY agency or organization can request CAP assistance through the NOC (within the scope of our mission and training).

I would also suggest that if yor unit CC does not have a strong enough relationship with your State Director that he/she could simply pick up the phone and discuss this issue, that you need to start there...

[arajca]

While any agency can call up CAP for assistance, without an MOU, contract, or service agreement of some sort, insurance and financial issues will need to worked out on the phone with NOC. It is far easier for an EMA/FD/PD/whoever to call the NOC and request support IAW MOU #(123456), since all those issues are already dealt with. All the NOC then has to do is reference the MOU in the mission description and hand out a mission number to the caller. The caller can then contact local CAP resources with the mission number and receive the support they want or have the NOC make the call depending on the MOU.

After the Haywood fire in CO, CAP and CO sheriffs set up an MOU for the rest of the year to allow them to call CAP A/C out for fire spotting. The SO had to call the NOC and the NOC would give the SO the mission number and make the call to COWG Alerting Officer to send out the crew. Typical time from initial call to alert was less than 10 minutes. I don't have a copy of this MOU, unfortunetely, but I do remember all liability and cost issues were addressed in it.

[KyCAP]

There is a MOU template that all wing commanders were provided after the Winter Boards in DC this year.  It replaced the MOU template from the previous year.

In Ky we have been working hard on several state level and local leve MOUs.  One with the KY Army National Guard and another with the City of Lexington itself.

I suggest that you start by asking your Wing Commander for a copy of this, or ask the Wing CC to contact the General Counsel --- Not the National Legal Officer (two different people) for a copy.

Then get your local agency to look at it.  Make their changes and then send that back through Wing Commander to General Counsel.. They will look at it and then send this back to the CAP-USAF JAG Office.  It takes time.

In our case the Ky Army NG JAG office made several changes to the CAP-USAF JAG office.

Your Wing Commander is the ONLY corporate officer in a wing and the ONLY person authorized to sign an MOU after it is reviewed by all of the national lawyers.

National MOU's seem to have been tangled up in the past.   For example, it is my understanding from last fall that the MOU between CAP and NOAA is in limbo.   Our state EM agency paid for NWS flights for tornado damage on one occasion.  On a seperate occasion they were AFNSEP funded.

Also, for Fire Patrol in KY Wing the National Guard is the funding agency and the military calls the military for us....  ie the state wants Fire Patrol, so the civilian EM side calls the military EM side of the house and they call AFNSEP who did issue the mission number.   Now I think that AFNSEP is delegating this function to the 1st Air Force.  There was a memo passed to Incident Commander via Wing Commanders on this issue about three weeks ago. 

This is a very complicated and tedious issue.   I have been very entrenched in trying to understand it myself.   We can fly CAP corporate missions without AF assigned mission numbers that local agencies fund, but just as everyone states, the insurance is COMPLETELY different no input on better or worse at this time.   

Also, the CAP corporate missions are quicker to get if you have a corporate customer who calls the NOC and commits to paying the bill rather than working your way to AFNSEP.

One of the biggest mysteries is using CAP for missing person missions funded by AFRCC.   There has to be some criterion some where on this.   

Then NHQ should develop some "working" material for us to educate our local agencies on our capabilities on a "specific" topic.  It is VERY hard to set expectations of a fleet of ARCHER and G-1000 SDIS aircraft being ready and then when called...  "Well, how do you want to pay for this....."    Not being critical, just speaking from experience....

Capt. Russ Hensley, CAP
Director of Communications
Kentucky Wing

[KyCAP]

FYI:

General Counsel link with all National MOU's is here:
http://level2.cap.gov/index.cfm?nodeID=5569

[BlackKnight]

There is a MOU template that all wing commanders were provided after the Winter Boards in DC this year.  It replaced the MOU template from the previous year.

In Ky we have been working hard on several state level and local leve MOUs.  One with the KY Army National Guard and another with the City of Lexington itself.

Thanks. This is excellent info.  We've got a new wing commander and I don't think anyone currently on wing staff is aware that there was a new MOU template. (Just not on their radar screen.)  I'll bet a case of MREs we're working with the old one.

Then get your local agency to look at it.  Make their changes and then send that back through Wing Commander to General Counsel.. They will look at it and then send this back to the CAP-USAF JAG Office.  It takes time.

Right.

Your Wing Commander is the ONLY corporate officer in a wing and the ONLY person authorized to sign an MOU after it is reviewed by all of the national lawyers.

Right, we're well aware that the wing commander is the only person authorized to sign MOUs or contract agreements. We're just trying to get the process started with as few initial glitches as possible.

Then NHQ should develop some "working" material for us to educate our local agencies on our capabilities on a "specific" topic.  It is VERY hard to set expectations of a fleet of ARCHER and G-1000 SDIS aircraft being ready and then when called...  "Well, how do you want to pay for this....."    Not being critical, just speaking from experience....

Capt. Russ Hensley, CAP
Director of Communications
Kentucky Wing

This is so true.  It's hard to believe so many of us are out here trying to invent the same wheel.  Your comments suggest that some guidance is being provided by NHQ but as is often the case it doesn't get disseminated beyond a file cabinet at wing HQ. Chain of command restrictions prevent us from going directly to NHQ because we might inadvertently ask the wrong question. 

Thanks again Capt. Hensley.  Great info, we'll pursue along the lines you've suggested.