Public Assistance Glossary: Common Terms in Plain Language

FEMA Public Assistance has a vocabulary of its own, and the authoritative definitions live in two places: FEMA's regulations in Title 44 of the Code of Federal Regulations and the terms-and-definitions appendix of FEMA's Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide (PAPPG). This glossary gathers the terms that come up most, grouped by theme, each described in plain language from those sources. The documents themselves carry the full definitions.

Roles

Applicant — An entity that asks for assistance under a recipient's award: a state agency, a local government, a Tribal Nation or an eligible private nonprofit. Once funded, an applicant is a subrecipient.

Recipient — The government the grant is awarded to, which is accountable for the funds. It is generally the state for which the disaster was declared, though a Tribal Nation may choose to be a recipient in its own right.

Subrecipient — An entity that receives a subaward from the recipient to carry out part of the program; a contractor or an individual beneficiary is not one.

Private nonprofit organization — A non-government entity with a current tax-exemption ruling, or state evidence of nonprofit status, whose facility provides a critical service or an essential social service to the general public; houses of worship are among them.

Local government — Counties, municipalities, towns, school districts, special districts, councils of governments, regional entities and certain tribal organizations and rural communities, as FEMA's guide lists them.

Declarations

Declaration — The President's action that opens Stafford Act assistance. It designates which kinds of assistance apply and in which areas, and the designations can differ from one area to another.

Major disaster — A natural catastrophe, or a fire, flood or explosion from any cause, that the President finds severe enough to warrant major disaster assistance.

Emergency — An occasion on which the President finds federal help needed to supplement state, local, tribal and territorial efforts to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or avert a catastrophe.

Individual Assistance and Public Assistance — Two of the programs a major disaster declaration may authorize: Individual Assistance helps eligible individuals and households, while Public Assistance funds governments and eligible private nonprofits.

Incident period — The span of time during which the incident occurred. Claimed damage has, as a rule, to have occurred during and been caused by the declared incident.

Work, facilities and projects

Emergency work — Work that has to be done immediately to save lives, protect improved property and public health and safety, or lessen the threat of a disaster: debris removal (Category A) and emergency protective measures (Category B).

Permanent work — The repair or replacement of an eligible facility on the basis of its pre-disaster design and the codes and standards that apply: Categories C through G, from roads and bridges to utilities and parks.

Facility — A building, works, system or piece of equipment, publicly or privately owned, or an improved and maintained natural feature. Agricultural land is not a facility.

Force account — An applicant's own labor and equipment, as opposed to contractors.

Immediate threat — The threat of additional damage or destruction from an event that can reasonably be expected within five years — the test behind most emergency work.

Hazard mitigation (406 mitigation) — A cost-effective measure that reduces the potential for future damage to a facility, funded on permanent work projects under Section 406 of the Stafford Act.

Project and project worksheet — A project is a logical grouping of the work a declared incident made necessary, which can span several sites; the project worksheet is the FEMA form that records its scope of work and cost estimate. Work below a minimum amount FEMA adjusts each year is not eligible.

Scope of work — The description of the eligible work needed to address an immediate threat or to restore a facility to its pre-disaster design, function and capacity, with the applicable standards.

Small and large projects — Projects below the threshold FEMA adjusts each year are small and are funded on estimates under simplified procedures; projects at or above it are large and, unless their funding is capped (an improved, alternate or Section 428 project), are reconciled to documented actual costs at closeout. The classification uses the final approved eligible cost after reductions.

Improved and alternate projects — An improved project restores the facility's pre-disaster function while changing its design; an alternate project applies the funding to a different facility when the applicant decides the public is better served that way.

Section 428 — The Stafford Act's alternative procedures, under which FEMA funds large permanent work projects on fixed, capped estimates rather than actual costs, with flexibility to use excess funds.

Money

Obligation — FEMA's formal commitment of funds. Under FEMA's regulations, project approval is also an obligation of funds to the recipient, which then distributes them to subrecipients.

Federal share and cost share — The part of a project's cost paid with federal funds; in most disasters the federal share of eligible costs is at least 75 percent.

Cost Estimating Format — The tool FEMA uses to estimate large permanent work projects that are not yet complete, applying defined factors and contingencies.

Management costs and direct administrative costs — The administrative costs of a grant: indirect costs, direct administrative costs tied to a specific project, and other administrative expenses, reimbursed through a capped contribution under Section 324 of the Stafford Act.

Duplication of benefits — Funding from two sources for the same work, such as insurance proceeds and Public Assistance for the same repair; FEMA reduces eligible costs or deobligates funding to prevent it.

Period of performance — The time between a federal award's start and end dates during which its work may be carried out; it can include more than one budget period.

From application to closeout

Request for Public Assistance — The form a government or nonprofit uses to apply for Public Assistance, due within a period after its area is designated in the declaration.

Grants Portal — The online system in which applicants submit and manage their project applications.

Validate As You Go — FEMA's review of grant payments as they are drawn down, which checks for improper payments and reduces closeout documentation for recipients with proven controls.

Closeout — The final reconciliation of projects and the award, in which small projects are certified complete and large projects, capped ones excepted, are documented to actual cost within the periods FEMA's guide sets.

Section 705 — The Stafford Act provision that, in defined circumstances, bars FEMA from recovering Public Assistance payments made to state, tribal and local governments; it does not protect private nonprofits.

Appeals

First and second appeal — The two administrative levels at which an applicant may contest a FEMA determination: first to the Regional Administrator, then to the Assistant Administrator for Recovery, each within the periods FEMA's regulations set. A second-appeal decision is FEMA's final administrative decision.

Arbitration — The alternative, under Section 423 of the Stafford Act, of taking a qualifying dispute to the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals in place of a second appeal; the Board's decision is final and binding.

For how these terms fit together, our page on what Public Assistance is is the place to start.