S. 444 — Federal Emergency Mobilization Accountability (FEMA) Workforce Planning Act

This section requires the FEMA Administrator, not later than one year after enactment and every three years thereafter, to develop and submit to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure a human capital operating plan for the agency's workforce, using best practices from the Office of Personnel Management, the Comptroller General, and other sources. The plan must include (1) performance measures to monitor progress on staffing and skills gaps, with analysis of barriers and changes to measures; (2) details on employee types by hiring authority and cadre; (3) projected implementation costs; (4) cost-efficiency strategies; (5) analysis of overall staffing goals; (6) workforce gap assessment, including critical skills needs, current staffing by cadre/region/office, attrition trends, and shortages over the next three years; (7) action plan with recruitment/retention goals, training/deployment strategies (including for the Surge Capacity Force, i.e., FEMA's cadre for rapid disaster response under 6 U.S.C. 711), anti-discrimination measures, and legislative proposals; and (8) data on non-FEMA Surge Capacity Force members, post-disaster deployments under the Stafford Act (42 U.S.C. 5170, 5191), attrition/tenure by employee type, discrimination/harassment efforts and cases, and hiring timelines.