The committee shall monitor/review past, current, and future legislative actions that have the potential to impact emergency management activities or organizations and report critical legislative activities to the association’s board of directors.

The Committee recently submitted a position paper regarding the “Report on Disasters in 2007” by the Disaster Relief and Recovery Special Committee of the Kansas Legislature.  The Board of Directors reviewed the paper and adopted it on behalf of KEMA at the board meeting on February 20, 2008.

Excerpt from the Position Paper:

Forward: KEMA is the single organization in the State of Kansas which represents the interests of county emergency management programs and which seeks to improve the emergency management readiness and capability to deal with all hazards in the state during all phases of the disaster cycle. As such, KEMA has a strong interest in the results of the hearings and deliberations of the Legislature’s Special Committee. Numerous individual members of KEMA and the Association itself provided significant input and advice to the committee.

Overall, KEMA is impressed with the depth and scope of the Committee’s report and commends the members and staff of the committee for their work. State statutes make county emergency management agencies responsible for coordinating all disaster preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation efforts locally. The following position paper does not address those conclusions and recommendations which do not directly affect the administration of local emergency management programs. KEMA does, however, view all of the recommendations as having merit and deserving further action by the appropriate entities within the state.

The KEMA Government Affairs Committee and the KEMA Board of Directors has reviewed all of the recommendations and extracted and highlighted those they specifically wish to focus on. These recommendations are attached and numbered.

Position Paper (pdf)

Contact Information

KEMA Government Affairs:  Mike Selves, CEM, KCEM

MDS - EM Consulting & Advocacy
Michael D. Selves, CEM, CPM

Principal
5049 SW 22nd Street
Topeka, KS 66614-1401
Ph: 785-273-3081
Cell: 913-488-0215
E-Mail: mselves@sbcglobal.net