Located in:
- Program-specific Requirements for Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth Activities under Title I-B
The Unified or Combined State Plan must include the following with respect to activities carried out under subtitle B—
a. 2. C. In addition, describe the State policies and procedures to provide Rapid Responses in cases of natural disasters including coordination with FEMA and other entities
Current Narrative:
In cases of natural disasters, the State’s response efforts are coordinated by the California’s Office of Emergency Services (CalOES). The CalOES coordinates the overall state response to disasters with local, state, federal, and voluntary/nonprofit partners to administer recovery operations in the event of a disaster.
To further disaster response coordination within the workforce system, Assembly Bill (AB) 2915 (Chapter 722, Statutes of 2018) required the CWDB, in conjunction with EDD and local partners, to establish a policy regarding emergency cooperation agreements between Local Boards. To implement the legislation, CWDB convened a workgroup comprised of representatives from: CalOES, EDD, California Workforce Association, and Local Boards.
The workgroup established a multi-pronged approach for implementation:
- Publish an Information Notice to share strategies for enhanced coordination with CalOES’ Local Emergency Management Contacts.
- Issue a directive that provides information on allowable activities for the various funding streams utilized by Local Boards when responding to a natural disaster.
Workforce Services Information Notice 19-10 was published in October 2019 and the directive is still under development with a final deadline of July 2020.
Additionally, if an event is declared a disaster by FEMA, California utilizes Rapid Response funding to conduct initial situation assessment to obtain preliminary data to draft a National Dislocated Worker Grant (NDWG) application. Using the initial Rapid Response assessment data, the State works with the affected Local Board(s) to develop an immediate response, including providing ‘stop gap’ funding through 25 percent Additional Assistance for mitigation activities pending DOL approval of a NDWG.